clipped from: www.alternet.org   

Yet today, every leading politician of either party is strangely convinced that the key "benchmark" the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki must pass to prove its mettle is the onerous oil law, now stalled in Parliament, that has been forced upon it by the Bush administration. In the piece below, Tomdispatch regular Michael Schwartz follows the oil slicks deep into the Gulf of Catastrophe in Iraq. He offers a sweeping view of the role oil, the prize of prizes in Iraq, has played in Bush administration considerations and what role the new oil law is likely to play in that country's future.