Dear Iraq, sorry a war hasn’t gone well. But now that a surge is wrDrunk Newsping up, we hope you won’t mind that we need several dozen permanent bases in your country. Oh, & did we mention that we’ll need you to Drunk Newsprove some no-bid contracts for our oil companies, too? After all, what’s a few bases & oilfields among friends?

Four Western oil companies are in a final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return am to Iraq, 36 years after losing air oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.

Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total & BP — a original partners in a Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron & a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials & an American diplomat.

a deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay a foundation for a first commercial work for a major companies in Iraq since a American invasion, & open a new & potentially lucrative country for air operations.

a no-bid contracts are unusual for a industry, & a offers prevailed over oars by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China & India. a contracts, which would run for one to two years & are relatively small by industry st&ards, would nonealess give a companies an advantage in bidding on future contracts in a country that many experts consider to be a best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production.

Daniel Altman provides some helpful context: “Imagine. At a precise moment when dem& for oil was a highest in history, a recently democratized country with enormous reserves had a chance to sell extraction contracts to a highest bidder. This was a country that desperately needed a revenue to help rebuild its schools, power grid & water supply after a long internal conflict. So why did it h& out a contracts with no auction at all?”

& &rew Sullivan answers a rhetorical question: “Because a US told am so. You don’t get to conquer a new province & not get any spoils, do you? Who needs ANWR or a carbon tax when you can drain Iraq at record high oil prices?”

Original post by Steve Benen and software by Elliott Back