you're no fun

the little prince isn't happy:

bush is so done out with al-maliki's obstreperous stance on restrictions on us troops and his demand for a withdrawal timetable that he sharply warned al-maliki that without a [status of forces agreement] he would have to pull out us troops by jan. 1, 2009. (us troops operating in iraq with no agreed legal framework would be constantly open to murder and other serious legal charges).

well, well, well ... so much for "staying the course", that whole "stand-up-stand-down" thing and "conditions on the ground".

y'see, the whole point of the game was to take home two prizes: exclusive western oil contracts and permanent military bases to guarantee them. and it was clear that the prince was simply going to keep playing, and keep changing the rules, as long as the prizes were in front of him.

so, as playtime winds down, inexorably, with no prizes actually in hand, does the prince really think that taking his toys home in a huff is going to impress the other kids, who've already told him they don't want to play anymore and who've already heard his mamma calling?

update:

the oil majors are largely giving up on negotiating short-term contracts with the iraqi oil ministry. the contracts aren't that lucrative, and were just seen as ways of establishing a relationship, but the oil ministry played hard ball and so they could not come to terms.

come january, dubya's not gonna have much to show for his tenure in the oval office but for a tragicomedy entitled "how i ginned up an unjust war, alienated the world, castrated the constitution and only got this lousy t-shirt."

update ii:

looks like the iraqis are seriously feeling their oats these days, and aren't giving anyone any candies or flowers:

iraq will sign a $1.2 bn. service contract with china, for work on a small field that produces 90,000 barrels a day (iraq produces on the order of 2.4 million barrels a day). the deal declines to offer china a share in profits, confining it to fees paid for work done. that the iraqi oil ministry is playing this kind of hard ball has caused several western oil majors to pull out of talks on such short term contracts, which are not very profitable and are mainly undertaking to make good relations with the host country.

withdrawal symptoms

where most see the recent clash in basra between maliki's u.s.-backed forces and sadr's militiamen as a further slide into quicksand, bob wright @ bloggingheads.tv sees a bright red exit sign:

bob wright: well, let me tell you — get onto why i felt a little more sanguine after this, about the consequences of american withdrawal, or at least a little less concerned about the possibility of chaos engulfing the region if america withdraws. what you saw in this was that, contrary to some stereotypes, actually none of the parties involved are crazy, okay? maliki did miscalculate a little, but once he got himself into trouble, all of the parties saw that it was in their interest to work out a peaceful solution, and they did it. and they did it without any american help. they did with iranian help. we were not involved in the solution. they worked it out without us, okay? the only effect we may have had is by doing a little more — helping maliki inflict a little more damage than he would have otherwise. it may have weakened sadr's bargaining position a little, so maybe he got a little worse deal than he would have, but as you yourself said, it's far from clear whether it's better that sadr lose or that he prevail among the shiites. i mean, we don't even — we just don't know. the main thing is that first you get order on the shiite side, then you can proceed to hope for shiite-sunni reconciliation, and as far as the ordering process on the shiite side, i thought they passed the test. y'know, they worked it out. it's stable, it did not — all hell did not break loose. we had nothing to do with the solution. iran did, and that's just ... what we're stuck with is that iran is going to be the source of, a great source of power in the shiite south, and we insured that by invading iraq, and we gotta live with it.

unfortunately both pride and greed make it extremely unlikely that america will decide to "live with it", which guarantees that we'll continue to overstay our welcome in southern iran iraq ...

turnips in the morning

it's what's for breakfast every day in iraq: today so far, six bodies turned up in baghdad, eight turned up in mosul, one turned up in kirkuk ...

(photo courtesy of InvisibleParadigm)