The tripling of Iraq's oil production capacity could mean the end of the Putin regime

The end of the Putin regime not that far away if things go well in Iraq

You may remember what investor William Browder said only a few days ago:

There is nothing behind the facade of Vladimir Putin's regime in Russia, says William Browder from Hermitage Capital Management."All it will take is a fall in the price of oil to $60 a barrel and Putin will be gone within a year.

If things go well in Iraq, the end of the Putin regime might not be very far away:

Iraq is poised to flood the oil market by tripling its capacity to pump crude by 2020 and is collaborating with Iran on strategy in a move that will challenge Saudi Arabia's grip on the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

"We feel the world needs to be assured of fuel for economic growth," Hussain al-Shahristani, Deputy Prime Minister for Energy in Iraq told oil industry delegates attending a Chatham House Middle East energy conference.

Al Shahristani said on Tuesday that Iraq plans to boost its capacity to produce oil to 9m barrels a day (bpd) by the end of the decade as Baghdad rushes to bolster its economy, which is still shattered by war and internal conflict. Iraq was producing 3m bpd in December, according to the International Energy Agency.

Iraq's intention to challenge Saudi Arabia's status as the "swing producer" in the OPEC cartel could see a dramatic fall in oil prices if Baghdad decides to break the group's quotas and sell more of its crude on the open market.

Read the entire article here

Another mass grave found in Iraq

Christopher Hitchens about another of the mass graves in Iraq

The BBC reports about another mass grave found in Iraq:

Iraqi officials have found a mass grave containing the bodies of more than 800 people thought to have been executed during Saddam Hussein's rule.

"There were shots to the head, there were men, women and children," said Human Rights Minister Mohammed Sudani.
The grave was found in Iraq's western Anbar province. The remains are thought to be from the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war.
Rights groups say there are hundreds of graves in Iraq with the bodies of up to 300,000 people killed under Saddam.
"This mass grave represents one of the ugliest crimes of the former regime and a huge violation of human rights," said Mr Sudani of the latest find in Anbar.

PS
Saddam Hussein was, if possible, an even more bloodthirsty dictator than Libya´s Gaddafi. President George W. Bush was right when he decided to get rid of Hussein, in spite of the fact that the war was not sanctioned by the UN Security Council, mainly because of French and German opposition for (opportunistic) reasons of  domestic policy and trade. Nobody denies that serious mistakes were made after first succesful operations, but still Bush was right to intervene, even if no weapons of mass destruction were not found (later). With the active support and participation of France and Germany, the task in Iraq would have been much easier.

The Bush freedom agenda

Charles Krauthammer reminds us of some facts:

Voices around the world, from Europe to America to Libya, are calling for U.S. intervention to help bring down Moammar Gaddafi. Yet for bringing down Saddam Hussein, the United States has been denounced variously for aggression, deception, arrogance and imperialism.

A strange moral inversion, considering that Hussein's evil was an order of magnitude beyond Gaddafi's. Gaddafi is a capricious killer; Hussein was systematic. Gaddafi was too unstable and crazy to begin to match the Baathist apparatus: a comprehensive national system of terror, torture and mass murder, gassing entire villages to create what author Kanan Makiya called a "Republic of Fear."
Moreover, that systemized brutality made Hussein immovable in a way that Gaddafi is not. Barely armed Libyans have already seized half the country on their own. Yet in Iraq, there was no chance of putting an end to the regime without the terrible swift sword (it took all of three weeks) of the United States.
No matter the hypocritical double standard. Now that revolutions are sweeping the Middle East and everyone is a convert to George W. Bush's freedom agenda, it's not just Iraq that has slid into the memory hole. Also forgotten is the once proudly proclaimed "realism" of Years One and Two of President Obama's foreign policy - the "smart power" antidote to Bush's alleged misty-eyed idealism.

Read the entire column here.

PS
Krauthammer is, of course, right about Iraq and the Bush freedom agenda. Bush was not perfect - who is? - but history will be much kinder to him than people relying on the picture given by the MSM have been lead to believe.

Washington Post: " a rough version of Mr. Bush's dream may yet come true"

The Washington Post has published an editorial - "A good year in Iraq" - which hopefully will be read by editorial writers also in Europe:

AT THE beginning of this year, Iraq’s fragile new political order faced a momentous challenge. The country needed to hold credible democratic elections at a time when its army was still battling al-Qaeda and other domestic insurgents. The winners had to form a government in spite of deep rifts among leaders and sects, who just three years ago were fighting a civil war. And all this had to happen even as the United States reduced its troops from 150,000 to 50,000 and ended combat operations for those who remained.
The result was a long, painful, contentious, confusing and sometimes bloody year. But when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki presented his new government to parliament on Tuesday, Iraq could fairly be said to have passed a major test. It is not yet the peaceful Arab democracy and force for good in the Middle East that President George W. Bush imagined when he decided on invasion eight years ago. But in the past 12 months it has taken some big steps in the right direction

The editorial offers the following conclusion:

It's still too early to draw conclusions about Iraq, though many opponents of the war did so long ago. Mr. Maliki's government could easily go wrong; the coming year, which could end with the withdrawal of all remaining U.S. troops, will likely be just as challenging as this one. But the country's political class has repeatedly chosen democracy over dictatorship and accommodation over violence. If that keeps up, a rough version of Mr. Bush's dream may yet come true.

Peter Wehner, writing in Commentary Magazine, has a good comment to the WP editorial:

Four years ago this month may have been the low-water mark in Iraq, with the nation gripped by a low-grade but escalating civil war. The American public strongly opposed the war. Almost every Democratic lawmaker in Congress, with the honorable exception of Senator Joseph Lieberman, was in fierce opposition to both the war and what later became known as the “surge.” Republican lawmakers were losing their nerve as well. Three months earlier, in September 2006, Senator Mitch McConnell had asked for, and received, a private meeting with President Bush. Senator McConnell’s message was a simple one: the Iraq war’s unpopularity was going to cost the GOP control of Congress. “Mr. President,” McConnell said, “bring some troops home from Iraq.”
President Bush, to his everlasting credit, not only refused to bend; he increased the American commitment to Iraq and changed our counterinsurgency strategy. And while the situation in Iraq remains fragile and can be undone — and while problems still remain and need to be urgently addressed (including the terrible persecution of Christians occurring in Iraq right now) — this is a moment for our nation, and most especially our military, to take sober satisfaction in what has been achieved. It has not been an easy journey. But it has been a noble and estimable one.
There is no need here to rehearse the names of the few who did not buckle at the moment when the war seemed lost. They know who they are. In the words of Milton, they were “faithful found among the faithless.” Their faithfulness, and in many cases their courage, is being vindicated.