"The WaPo is right in saying Iraqis don’t exactly have fond feelings for US. “Civilian killings created insurmountable hurdle to extended US troops in Iraq”.
Alas, the message coming out of the White House is that even after all this unspeakable tragedy, US is still not willing to let Iraq go. Obama’s charm offensive had two intentions: A) getting Maliki to concede the lion’s share for Big Oil even as Iraq’s great reserves are being brought into the world market; and, B) developing Iraq as a market for export of US weaponry. ‘A’ is understandable and even, arguably, constitutes a legitimate US interest. But ‘B’ isn’t. By any reckoning. This isn’t the time to persuade Maliki to buy F-16 fighter aircraft. It’s obscene - especially, just before Christmas.
The US policy toward Iraq is fraught with dangers. It is tempting to extract as much petrodollar out of Iraq as possible to make up for some of the estimated 3 trillion dollars that the war may have cost the US (according to Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz’s estimate). But Iraq is a powder keg with raging storms just below the surface of its exquisite ethnic and cultural tapestry. NYT carried a story on theaftermath of the “Sunni Awakening” that US encouraged. There is no surety that Iraq will continue to exist in its present form. "
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