Hydrocarbon Law for Dummies

Anwaar Hussain

Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, who was in Japan last week for a four-day official visit, says U.S.-led coalition forces should be able to withdraw from his country in a year and half at the latest, a Japanese newspaper reported on Saturday. "Personally, I think Iraqi security forces will complete reforms and training in a year or a year and a half. After that, the coalition troops will no longer be needed." Hashemi was quoted as saying. No longer needed, huh! Personally, I think that the Iraqi Vice President’s IQ and shoe size are about the same. One hates to puncture the heartwarming, optimistic naivete of the Iraqi Vice President but the truth is that the U.S.-led coalition forces are not going any where, not for the next about 30 years at the minimum. How, pray, has the scribe arrived at this conclusion, one may ask. That, sirs, is a no-brainer. Read on. Invisible in the smoke screen of civil war in Iraq, the current US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad has been working feverishly on Iraq’s first post-invasion Hydrocarbon Law...

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