US centric viewpoints about hegemony
India, China, Russia, and Turkey have been warned off dealing with Iran, especially concerning oil deals and infrastucture. But Iraq is making deals right and left. I have not updated the Turkey/Kurdistan situation from last week because it has a fast changing life of its own.
Iraq and Iran signed an agreement to build pipelines for the transfer of Iraqi crude oil and oil products, the state-run Iran news network Saturday quoted the oil ministry as announcing.The 32-inch (81-centimetre) pipeline will bring crude from the southern Iraqi port of Basra to the southwestern Iranian port of Abadan. There will be a separately 16-inch one for oil products.
Iran and China to build a pair of enormous power plants, the Iraqi electricity minister said Tuesday. Word of the project prompted serious concerns among American military officials, who fear that Iranian commercial investments can mask military activities at a time of heightened tension with Iran. (I lost the link on this)
Renewal of UN mandate and Oil agreement is in jeopardy as part of some bargaining chip and soveriegnty issue.
The oil game in Iraq may be almost up. On September 29th, like a landlord serving notice, the government of Iraq announced that the next annual renewal of the United Nations Security Council mandate for a multinational force in Iraq — the only legal basis for a continuation of the American occupation — will be the last. That was, it seems, the first shoe to fall. The second may be an announcement terminating the little-noticed, but crucial companion Security Council mandate governing the disposition of Iraq’s oil revenues.
By December 31, 2008, according to Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, the government of Iraq intends to have replaced the existing mandate for a multinational security force with a conventional bilateral security agreement with the United States, an agreement of the sort that Washington has with Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and several other countries in the Middle East. The Security Council has always paired the annual renewal of its mandate for the multinational force with the renewal of a second mandate for the management of Iraqi oil revenues.
Turkey and Iran have a common problem:
Faced with rising rebel violence, Turkey says it is running out of options other than military action, with neither the United States nor Iraq doing enough to stamp out the rebel bases.
More than 37,000 people have been killed since 1984 when the PKK took up arms fighting for self-rule in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast.
Uzbekistan and other Other Central Asian counties are reviewing commitments on US military bases and looking to other alliances.
Bolivia and Ecuador are reviewing commitments on US military bases and aid.
Poland is reviewing its commitment as a symbolic ally.
Mixed signals at least from the mid-east campaign.