Should Iraq's oil fields be nationalized?

Maybe if Iraq's oil fields were nationalized, the Sunnis would feel more secure about getting their fair share of oil revenue and wouldn't object to the federalist-autonomous-region preferences of a majority of the Shiites and Kurds. *

Nationalizing the fields might also lessen some of the concerns of Turkey over the possibility of Kirkuk being annexed to Kurdistan.

Iraq's constitution already says that the country's oil belongs to all Iraqis. ** Nationalizing the fields in which that oil lays would just be another step in that same general direction.


footnotes
* In a March 19, 2007 poll by ABC News and others, 59% of Shiites and 79% of Kurds favored either regional states with a federal government or independent states. Only 3% of Sunnis favored either of these two options, favoring a strongly centralized national government instead. (question 14)
** "Oil and gas are the ownership of all the people of Iraq in all the regions and governorates." (Iraqi Constitution, Article 110)
*** I'm having second thoughts about this idea. Nationalization could lead to manipulation or coercion by those controlling Iraq's oil or revenue distribution. (see More thoughts on draft oil law).

posted: wednesday, april 11, 2007, 11:55 PM ET
update: tuesday, may 18, 2007, 6:38 PM ET

tags: iraq oil nationalize