A while ago, I blogged
a New York Times front-pager
on Dubya's plans for occupied Iraq, noting that it provided for
divvying up the oil fields among American corporations, but that the
administration was trying very hard to reassure its Saudi
masters partners that they wouldn't use that control
to undermine Saudi-dominated OPEC's control of oil prices. (Thus
enraging Arab public opinion with the takeover itself, while at the
same time securing no economic benefit for Americans outside the
oilpatch --- a neat double fake-out some have missed).
But there's more. The plan talks of an thorough reconstruction of Iraqi civil society, eliminating the Baath fanatics who have misruled the country under Saddam, something like the de-Nazification of Germany following World War II. Except it now seems that there's going to be a wrinkle: this will be a version of de-Nazification which doesn't eliminate the Nazis.
I expect the usual parties to praise this remarkably nuanced approach to a subtle and difficult problem.
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