Pay No Attention to the Oil Rig Behind the Curtain

Since the Saudi Consigliere suggested we be out of Iraq by 2008- to Dear Leader's vocal disagreement, the Rethuglicans have the potential of removing what little main$tream media attention the antiwar movement has been given since November.

Between, as Atrios calls them, factions like St. John McCain and the Wise Old Men, Dear Leader's Rethuglicans have the whole spectrum of Moderate Centri$t to NeoCon to TheoCon Crusader political persuasion.

And really, what other opinion is there on cable news these days?

Amidst all the babble in and about Washington and the main$tream media about the Iraq Study Group's findings, something went unnoticed that both Bu$hCo-Cheneyburton and the Bandar Bu$h Baker factions of the Company agree with wholeheartedly. But Antonia Juhasz, at AlterNet, caught it.

In its heavily anticipated report released on Wednesday, the Iraq Study Group made at least four truly radical proposals.

The report calls for the United States to assist in privatizing Iraq's national oil industry, opening Iraq to private foreign oil and energy companies, providing direct technical assistance for the "drafting" of a new national oil law for Iraq, and assuring that all of Iraq's oil revenues accrue to the central government.

President Bush hired an employee from the U.S. consultancy firm Bearing Point Inc. over a year ago to advise the Iraq Oil Ministry on the drafting and passage of a new national oil law. As previously drafted, the law opens Iraq's nationalized oil sector to private foreign corporate investment, but stops short of full privatization. The ISG report, however, goes further, stating that "the United States should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise." In addition, the current Constitution of Iraq is ambiguous as to whether control over Iraq's oil should be shared among its regional provinces or held under the central government. The report specifically recommends the latter: "Oil revenues should accrue to the central government and be shared on the basis of population." If these proposals are followed, Iraq's national oil industry will be privatized and opened to foreign firms, and in control of all of Iraq's oil wealth.

The proposals should come as little surprise given that two authors of the report, James A. Baker III and Lawrence Eagleburger, have each spent much of their political and corporate careers in pursuit of greater access to Iraq's oil and wealth...

At last, something all the Kennebunkport Corleones can agree on.