Fascinating achievement of US foreign policy: Iraq outcranks Iran on oil
Wednesday, August 15, 2012 at 9:23AM 
You have to credit Bush the Elder on the northern NFZ after Desert Storm because that set in motion the KRG we know today. You also credit Bush on the surge and Obama on the latest sanctions strategy, because it's collectively a significant restructuring of the correlation of forces in the region - a dynamic obviously driven by the ability to export oil (FT says Iran's exports = 1/2 gov revenue and 80% of total export value). Iraq hasn't outproduced Iran since their mutual war in the late 1980s.
Iraq dreams of 12mb by 2017, but the industry pegs 4.5mb as more realistic, according to the article.
By December, analysts say, iraq will have earned more selling its oil than Iran for the first time since Saddam Huessein invaded Kuwait in 1990.
All this is to remind of Zhou Enlai's response to a question concerning his opinion of the French Revolution: "Too early to say."
Reader Comments (2)
So after virtually destroying a society and inflicting emotional wounds on a people that will take generations to heal, the only important thing is .............. oil?
"All this is to remind of Zhou Enlai's response to a question concerning his opinion of the French Revolution: "Too early to say.""
Which was probably about the student uprisings in 1968, according to Chas Freeman -- who was there.
Makes for a colorful story, though.