Bush distances himself from the 'non-functional' Iraqi government

Bush has fired his first shot across Maliki's bows.

Carefully scripted to avoid giving the impression that America is the political puppet-master in Iraq, Mr Bush said: "The fundamental question is will the government respond to the demands of the people. And if the government ... doesn't respond to the demands of the people, they will replace the government. That's up to the Iraqis to make that decision, not American politicians."

The "demands of the Iraqi people" apparently includes an overwhelming wish that the Iraqi government stop infighting and pass the Oil Law which will allow US oil companies to control Iraq's most precious resource.

As I pointed out yesterday, Maliki has until September to pass the Oil Law or Bush will set about replacing him, just as he replaced Ibrahim al-Ja'afari when he wouldn't dance to the US tune.

And bang on cue, Bush steps up to the plate to demand that the Iraq government do as it's people request and give the US control of it's oil.

Now, of course, Bush can cite no source for his claim that this is a demand from the Iraqi people. Indeed, the Iraqi Trade Union recently claimed the precise opposite of what Bush is claiming:

Iraqi public opinion strongly opposes the handing of authority and control over the oil to foreign companies, that aim to make big profits at the expense of the people. They aim to rob Iraq’s national wealth by virtue of unfair, long term oil contracts that undermine the sovereignty of the State and the dignity of the Iraqi people.

Indeed, recent polling in Iraq found that the Oil Law is deeply unpopular across all sections of Iraqi society:

As is the norm, nobody bothered to ask Iraqis what they thought of the controversy until recently, when a coalition of NGOs and other civil society groups commissioned a poll (PDF) to gauge Iraqis' reaction to the proposed legislation. It found that Iraqis from all ethnic and sectarian groups and across the political spectrum oppose the principles enshrined in the laws. Considering the multiethnic bloodbath we've witnessed over the past four years, it's an impressive display of Iraqi solidarity.

Six Nobel Peace Prize Laureates recently weighed in on the American proposal:

"The Iraq oil law could benefit foreign oil companies at the expense of the Iraqi people, deny the Iraqi people economic security, create greater instability, and move the country further away from peace," Betty Williams, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi and Wangari Maathai wrote in a statement posted on their Web site, nobelwomensinitiative.org.

"The U.S. government should leave the matter of how Iraq will address the future of its oil system to the Iraqi people to be dealt with at a time when they are free from occupation and more able to engage in truly democratic decision-making," the laureates wrote. "It is immoral and illegal to use war and invasion as mechanisms for robbing a people of their vital natural resources."

Now, the very notion that the Iraqi people are able to fairly negotiate access to such a precious resource whilst remaining under foreign occupation is simply laughable. And the notion put forward by Bush - that the Iraqi people are demanding that this matter be sorted at a time when they live under the daily threat of suicide bombers and worse - is simply an obscenity.

Make no mistake about what Bush has just done. He has sent a warning to Maliki that the Oil Law must pass or his government will fall.

That he chooses to mask his threat as concern for the wishes of the Iraqi people, when every poll states that the Iraqi people want no such thing, is a further indication - were any needed - of the contempt that Bush displays for the actual wishes of the people he supposedly "liberated".

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