Diplomatic Talks Begin "with an air of nonchalance"

With an air of nonchalance, the Bush administration says now it will meet Iran and Syria in the context of a regional conference aimed at improving security in Iraq.

That's how CFR headlined the scheduled meeting. Nonchalance. I love it.

No one can accuse the administration of not taking enough time to examine a hot horseshoe before dropping it. It may not be "too little, too late," but it's sure damn little, way late. (For those slow on the uptake, the horseshoe is the Iraq war.)

Nur made the best comment I have read.

Well, George Bush is finally desperate enough to negotiate with Syria and Iran in a regional conference on Iraq security. It only took 100,000+ civilian dead, probably half a million wounded, US 3000 KIAs and another 20,000 severely wounded, 3 million refugees and a trillion dollars.

People like us could have produced tremendous savings, but our advice was ignored. Meanwhile, the French and the Russians have been calling for an international conference since late 2003. But some geostratists have been saying it's now too late to do anything that doesn't hand victory to the jihadis, with further destabilization in the Middle East.

As I read this morning's blogposts I came across this by Barkley Rosser (link to his 30-page CV)at Max Speak, You Listen.

The mystery is solved.

It has to do with the "O" word.

While I continue to think that the immediate impetus for the US going into Iraq was more trivial and also misguided, the Cheney faction has clearly long wanted this since his widely quoted remarks in 1999 (it is requoted in the Escobar piece) about US oil companies needing more oil reserves, and Iraq the place to get them. This is clearly a triumph for them, and it is clear that the Bush administration has recently been pushing very hard on this, looking for some kind of gain out of all this mess, and for their pals in Big Oil, this is a huge win, now putting pressure on other oil producing countries to up the current 12% of world oil pumped on the basis of such PSAs.

Quelle surprise!

Addendum, March 6

Not all agree.
The Lounsbury at Aqoul offers another point of view with his customary nuanced subtlety.

The only people who can use this law - once it passes - in the foreseeable future are investors who can operate outside the frameworks of Western governance. No OECD bribery acts or other namby pamby niceness.

In short, China, Iran, and others unconstrained by scruples or the like, and without the risk profile of a Western investor.

Let me bold, No Western Investor in his right motherfucking mind is going to put equity up for anything in Iraq in the next FIVE years. At best. The risk is way outside even the most aggressive zone. And anyone who does, that is Westerner, is going to lose their fucking shirt.

The whankery from the Left morons and the Right dupes is nothing but pure, illiterate idiocy.

As the reader can see, his is the moderate position, neither Left nor Right. Squarely in the middle.
What a gentleman.
But hey, a lot of successful people have not been known for grace. When you swim with sharks and all that...