Iraqis seem ready to finally pass an oil law to divide up oil income. I'm sure that is helped by this news:
Iraq's oil exports reached their highest level in more than three decades last month as the country's output has continued to increase, oil ministry officials said on Saturday.
Overall exports averaged 2.565 million barrels per day (bpd)[.]
Of course, I freely admit that this also just opens up more avenues for corruption.
Ultimately, how this works out is up to the Iraqis, just as the future of their country generally is in their hands.
But I had hoped that by this stage of the war in Iraq, we'd be relying on civilian advisers from the FBI and judicial branch to help Iraqis fight for rule of law, with our troops simply providing a guarantee that no faction can resort to force to resolve questions of dividing up oil revenue.
UPDATE: Iraq's internal political divisions and failure to try to adhere to rule of law are more worrisome to me than any direct Iranian military threat. We should be there helping, but we just don't have the assets on the ground to help Iraq choose wisely.
