From Indian Punchline
MK Bhadrakumar
"It is not often that a small country tells off the United States Vice-President that he is not welcome to pay a visit. More so when that Vice President is the forceful personality of Joe Biden and that small country happens to be Iraq, which the US invaded, vandalized and degraded into a heap of rubble. Yet, Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki has done just that.
His reasons are many and all of them relate to the US’ continued interference in Iraq’s internal politics. But one main reason is that ExxonMobil (which Steve Coll in an utterly fascinating recent book titled ExxonMobil and American Power presents as virtually the US Government) has bypassed Baghdad and struck a deal with the Kurdistan government in northern Iraq for exploiting the fabulous oil reserves of that region.
With the US-India Strategic Dialogue out of the way, Delhi notified on Tuesday that payments made in Indian rupee for importing Iranian oil will be exempted from any local tax (which could be as high as 40%). This move is strongly suggestive of the government’s keenness to facilitate trade with Iran and it defies the US’ containment strategy toward Iran.''
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