Iraq's oil politics : where agreement might be found

This report analyzes the interplay of oil politics among Iraq's major communities and the intersection of this interplay with the efforts of the Bush administration to achieve passage of a hydrocarbon law. The report finds that while the Bush administration understood that an oil-revenue sharing agreement is vital to achieving a political settlement in Iraq, there was a mismatch between the legislation that the United States championed-- the investment and contracting focused on hydrocarbon law-- and the strategic objective that it had identified, setting up a national oil revenue-sharing system. The report finds that revenue sharing may be the only area where the desire of many Arab Iraqis for nationally led governing arrangements and the financial interests of autonomy-minded Iraqi Kurds overlap. It then recommends that U.S. political influence should be reoriented to play a supporting role in helping Iraqis come to a comprehensive legislative and constitutional agreement on how to share their oil revenues.… (more)