At Last! Signs of Progress in Iraq

As it has turned out, George Bush's Forever War has been more about oil than WMD, spreading democracy or punishing those bad Iraqis who flew hijacked jetliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

This was further confirmed when Bush and Prime Minister Al-Maliki announced that they had cut a sweetheart deal under which the abjectly corrupt Baghdad government gets a long-term nanny in the form of U.S. troops stationed at permanent bases and the gluttonous U.S. gets first dibs at Iraq's vast oil riches.

But like so many other things in Iraq – heck, like everything in Iraq – all is not going according to plan.

There still isn’t an oil law (although the Kurds are cutting deals on the side with non-U.S. companies), the Kurds are fighting with the rest of Iraq over oil production in Kirkuk, which accounted for most of the increase in oil production last year, and the oil-rich Basra region remains hugely unstable.

And now comes news that Iraqi oil production may actually be going down. But worry not, Mr. and Mrs. America, opium production is going up.

More here and here.