Oil in the election
Salah Al-Mokhtar assesses the strategic goals of the Iraqi elections

Many have made mistakes in evaluating the ultimate objectives that lie behind the US's insistence on holding elections in Iraq. One of the most common mistakes is the assumption that holding elections will help generate a democratic solution to the problem of who should hold the reins of power in Iraq.

A second hypothesis has it that elections will help deflect an Iraqi civil war, while a third claims that holding elections is the only realistic way that Iraqis will be able to rid themselves of the occupation, as occupation forces will be able to withdraw more easily if requested to do so by a legitimate governing authority.

These are political theories, and they deal with the surface appearance of events in Iraq. However rigorous and well researched they initially appear they are designed to obscure the central issue: the hidden strategic objectives behind America's insistence on holding elections. What is called for here is a considered and objective analysis of events in Iraq that deals with the wider strategic picture and avoids the trite over-simplifications traded by those who have an interest either in maintaining the occupation or in realising Iranian interests.

Why Washington's insistence that elections should have gone ahead despite the appalling security situation?

America's true objectives are no longer as mysterious as they once were. Developments over the course of the last 20 months have provided clear indications that the US is working to secure specific strategic goals in Iraq should it be forced by the fierceness of the armed resistance to leave the country.

One of the most important reasons for insisting on holding elections is to set up an Iraqi government that the US is able to describe as legitimate, which could then be presented to the international community as the product of free elections. It would then have the authority to take decisions and sign treaties that would be enforceable under international law. This is exactly what America needs to make happen in order to achieve two fundamental goals: a speedy withdrawal from Iraq to avoid further human and material losses at the hands of a fierce Iraqi armed resistance, and the signing of long-term strategic and economic agreements.

Among the military treaties planned is one that allows American military bases to be established in the country. There will be 14 main bases to secure American control over Iraq's oil-wells and to allow the American military easy access to other areas in the region. Under the economic treaties the Iraqi government will grant American companies long-term concessions to exploit Iraqi oil and will include, in all probability, the privatisation of the country's oil industry.

The duration of these treaties will almost certainly be no shorter than 25 years, since American oil consumption is set to double in the next 10 years even as its traditional suppliers, like Saudi Arabia, reduce production. America will need new, relatively unexploited sources of oil that can be accessed without having to deal with political obstacles. Iraq is one such source.

Another aspect of the problem is that emerging powers such as China and India will also need more and more oil, creating competition over oil stocks on the market, which -- as a CIA report on the problem of energy in the next 15 years pointed out -- falls short of demand.

By setting up American bases in Iraq and controlling its oil through internationally binding treaties the US will have achieved its two primary goals, both of which lay the foundation for the rise of an American empire and the removal of potential rivals.

The real value of such agreements only becomes clear when one remembers treaties such as that concluded between America and the pre- revolutionary Cuban government over Guantanamo Bay. Under the treaty, the area was rented to the Americans for 99 years. Following the revolution the Cubans demanded that America return the bay area, but relying on the treaty they had signed with the previous government the Americans vehemently refused.

How much more dangerous, then, if an "elected" Iraqi government were to sign such treaties, bearing in mind that despite Soviet and international support Cuba was unable to secure the return of Guantanamo Bay in the face of American legal arguments.

Although the American occupation set out to divide Iraq from the very beginning it has always known that re-centralisation and re- unification would be likely once it left. It has been vital, therefore, to weaken Iraq internally by seeking to establish a federal state with a weak centre and strong autonomous regions such as those proposed in the north and south, in addition to a triangle in the middle. Iraq can play the role of an important regional power only if there is a strong, centralised government that can successfully exploit Iraq's human and economic resources, achieve scientific and technological progress in the manner of other third world countries and establish a resilient infrastructure. Washington's strategy has been to break up the Iraqi state.

Not content with toppling its government the occupation has destroyed its infrastructure, wrecked historical sites (such as the National Iraqi Museum) and places of cultural importance and pillaged places of learning.

A tripartite federal state needs to be approved by a legitimate government and constitution. The occupation knows full well that no occupier has the power to authorise such a radical change in the Iraqi state's basic structure, bound as they are by the Geneva Conventions that forbid any change being made in the laws and economic system of the occupied country.

Elections, then, were vital to creating a weakened or, as they might put it, a federal Iraq. The elections give the federal regime internal support from those in the north and south, and external support from what the international community, especially if the UN, or the Security Council, supports the results of the election.

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