If ever there was a time for Neo-Con, Friedman-esque jingoistic pride, that time is now. Because whatever happens now on the ground in Iraq is superfluous. The Invasion of Iraq has been won. We got their oil.
AMERICAN energy giant ExxonMobil and Europe-based Shell have won the right to develop one of the world's most prized untapped oil reserves.
The $US50 billion ($A55 billion) deal will place them among the largest players in postwar Iraq.
The energy companies were awarded the contract to extract oil from the West Qurna reservoir near Basra in Iraq's south in an extended tender process that has seen the Iraqi Government partner foreign companies in a bid to get its reserves of oil out of the ground as quickly and cheaply as possible. West Qurna was considered the jewel among the nine Iraqi oil and gas fields up for grabs, with verified reserves of 15 billion barrels and a strong chance that exploration will reveal significantly more.
To quote the fake pundit Martin Eisenstadt: "Thank you to allwho sacrificed so much."
--WKW
Crossposted at William K. Wolfrum Chronicles