>conversely, it's not like big oil will not still make money dealing
>with an iraqi state oil company, right?
They'll make money, but it means the Iraqi state will capture most of the rents (i.e., the difference between the world price, now around $30/barrel, and the cost of production in Iraq, which is probably only a couple of dollars a barrel). When I interviewed Raad AlKadiri, the economist with PFC Energy, he said that Big Oil didn't push for the Iraq war, so maybe they never expected to get their hands on the stuff in a big way.
Doug