Informed Speculation

…the country is one step closer to defusing one of the huge barriers to a shared national identity.  I’m talking about the oil-revenue-sharing plan that has now cleared the cabinet and is heading to parliament:

The Iraqi cabinet approved a draft of a law on Monday that would set guidelines for nationwide distribution of oil revenues and foreign investment in the immense oil industry. The endorsement reflected a major agreement among the country’s ethnic and sectarian political blocs on one of Iraq’s most divisive issues.

The draft law approved by the cabinet allows the central government to distribute oil revenues to the provinces or regions based on population, which could lessen the economic concerns of the rebellious Sunni Arabs, who fear being cut out of Iraq’s vast potential oil wealth by the dominant Shiites and Kurds. Most of Iraq’s crude oil reserves lie in the Shiite south and Kurdish north.

The law also grants regional oil companies or governments the power to sign contracts with foreign companies for exploration and development of fields, opening the door for investment by foreign companies in a country whose oil reserves rank among the world’s three largest.

Iraqi officials say dozens of major foreign companies, including ones based in the United States, Russia and China, have expressed strong interest in developing fields or have done some work with the Iraqi industry. The national oil law would allow regions to enter into production-sharing agreements with foreign companies, which some Iraqis say could lead to foreigners reaping too much of the country’s oil wealth.

Iraqi officials say all such contracts will be subjected to a fair bidding process, but American inspectors have reported that the upper echelons of the government, including the senior ranks of the Oil Ministry, are rife with corruption. There are also fears among non-Americans that American companies could be favored.

But oil industry analysts in the United States say it is unclear whether companies will rush to sign contracts because the law is vague about what legal protections investors would be given.

The oil law and several related measures must still be approved by Parliament before they are enacted. Since the American-led invasion in 2003, Iraqi politics have often been split bitterly along ethnic and sectarian lines, and that kind of conflict could stall the law’s passage. Drafts were debated for months by a committee before the cabinet finally approved one.

“At the end of the day, we all supported this thing because it’s workable for all the parties,” said Barham Salih, a deputy prime minister and the head of the committee.

It’s not a done deal yet, but it is progressing nicely.  In other Iraq news, the U.S. has decided to meet with Iran and Syria, but not bilaterally; instead, all three nations will take part in a regional security conference:

Iraq is spearheading a new diplomatic initiative that will invite Iran and Syria to a spring “neighbors conference” that also will include the United States, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a Senate committee this afternoon.

The United States’ participation in the conference could suggest a change of heart for the Bush administration, which has largely resisted calls for dialogue with Iran and Syria — nations it has accused of aiding terrorists during the four-year-old Iraq war.

“The violence occurring within the country has a decided impact on Iraq’s neighbors,” Rice told the Senate Appropriations Committee, which is considering the administration’s nearly $100 billion request to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “And Iraq’s neighbors as well as the international community have a clear role to play in supporting the Iraqi government’s effort to promote peace and national reconciliation within the country.”

Rice did not say in her opening statement to the committee if the United States would engage in direct talks with Iran and Syria during the conference, scheduled for April. But she signaled that the administration has listened to pleas by many Democrats, some Republicans and the Iraq Study Group to broaden diplomatic efforts in the Middle East.

“Prime Minister Maliki believes and President Bush and I agree that success in Iraq requires the positive support of Iraq’s neighbors,” Rice told the committee. “This is one of the key findings, of course, of the Iraq Study Group and it is an important dimension that many in the Senate and in the Congress have brought to our attention.”

…Rice said invitees to the conference will include Iraq’s “immediate neighbors” in the Middle East, the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (France, Britain, China, Russia and the United States) as well as Canada, Germany, Italy and Japan, who are members of the G-8.

“I would note that the Iraqi government has invited all of its neighbors, including both Syria and Iran, to attend” the conference, Rice told the Senate committee.

A preparatory meeting — attended by ambassadors from the participating nations — will be held in Baghdad around March 11, Rice said. And the ministerial-level conference would follow “as early as the first half of April,” she said.

Hmmm…well, this one is a bit trickier for me.  I opposed the Iraq Study Group approach to allowing Syria and Iran a great say in Iraq’s security because of the quite obvious fox/henhouse analogies.  Talk in and of itself is probably a positive thing, but we have to be careful to not let ourselves get dragged into side issues like the Golan Heights and other Israel-related items, matters the ISG actually recommended(!) we tie to Iraq’s security, bizarrely…