To: Ilaine who wrote (74074 ) 2/15/2003 2:28:09 AM From: KLP Respond to Speaking of Iraq and France and Oil!!! Look at 1997 T.L. Friedman's article~~~~~THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, "A Crude Story," New York Times, October 23, 1997 This pirate trade is only one small way in which the geo-economics of oil is working against the U.S. sanctions on Iran and the U.N. blockade on Iraq. The even bigger story is this: There are today five great lakes of oil in this part of the world -- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran and the Caspian Sea in Central Asia. The way international oil companies make their big money is by entering into production-sharing agreements with oil states. That is, the oil company assumes the risk of exploring and developing a country's oilfields, and then shares in its production until the field is dry. This way the oil company has a steady flow of crude for years to pump, refine, ship and market, profiting at each stage. That leaves Iran and Iraq. Both these countries understand what the oil companies want, and they are ready to give it to them. The deal just signed between Iran and the French, Russian and Malaysian oil companies is a production-sharing agreement for them to search for gas in Iran's huge South Pars offshore gasfield. You can see the allure: the oil companies get the kind of deal they've not seen in the Middle East since the 1970's, and Iran, whose oilfields are rundown, gets technical help from the best oil companies and a thumb in the eye to U.S. sanctions to boot. For now, Iran is limiting these production-sharing deals to offshore fields. But if Iran were to offer on-shore deals, and it's only a matter of time, every oil company in the world would be salivating. Not to be outdone, Saddam Hussein has signed production-sharing agreements with French, Russian and Italian oil companies that give them the right to develop certain Iraqi fields the minute U.N. sanctions on Iraq are lifted -- thus turning the oil companies into an international lobby on his behalf. Kuwait -- hearing from some of the 600 Kuwaiti families who had loved ones abducted by Iraq during the invasion and never accounted for by Baghdad, or visiting the newly rebuilt Kuwaiti oil fields that Iraq gratuitously set ablaze, creating a mammoth ecological disaster -- to be reminded why Saddam is such a menace and why the sanctions on Iraq need to be maintained. Powerful, oil-driven forces are building against the U.S. sanctions on Iran. And Saddam is clearly hoping that if and when the Iran sanctions collapse, those on Iraq will fall next. No wonder Kuwaitis like to tell American visitors: "There is no cosmic justice. You got Mexico and Canada as neighbors, and we got Iran and Iraq." mtholyoke.edu
