Want Cheap Gas? Move to Iraq.

Iraqis resist U.S. pressure to enact oil law

To be fair, this post actually isn't about cheap gas at all. In fact, it's about how Iraqis are fighting over oil. But I'm going to make it about cheap gas since I had to sell my kidney to fill up the tank of truck yesterday.

In any case, the Iraqis are squabbling over a controversial oil law that US officials have touted as the most important step in ending the civil war. I wish I could say I was convinced, but unlike Americans, I don't think Iraqis will be willing to forget the massive country-wide bloodshed because they have just got a share of some oil profits (like we forgot about what a shitty president Bush was when gas prices went down, that is).

Some arabs sabotaging our goodwill.

Although the bill has met resistance, it may still pass. Big surprise though, the White House had called for a May 5 deadline that obviously will not be met. If the White House was a reporter, it would have been fired about 6 years ago. Just by sheer probability one would think Bush would have gotten something right by this point. Here's my suggestion Mr. President: use a Quiji Board. I know, it sounds insane (though perhaps less insane than looking to God for guidance in making foreign policy decisions), but I'm fairly confident you'll do better with it than you have been doing relying on your own wit. Here's a quick synopsis of the oil law nonsense (courtesy, though perhaps not so curteously, from the LA Times):

Opposition ranges from vehement to measured, but two things are clear: The May deadline that the White House had been banking on is in doubt. And even if the law is passed, it fails to resolve key issues, including how to divide Iraq's oil revenue among its Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni regions, and how much foreign investment to allow. Those questions would be put off for future debates.

The problems of the oil bill bode poorly for the other so-called benchmarks that the Bush administration has been pressuring Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's government to meet. Those include provincial elections, reversing a prohibition against former Baath Party members holding government and military positions and revision of Iraq's constitution.