IT REALLY IS ALL ABOUT OIL

Not for us. We don't buy much Iraqi oil, and aren't staking any claim to sell it. But we do want to let the new Iraq get out from under the UN disarmament sanctions, so that Iraq can sell its oil freely again, to help get the country back on its own feet as fast as possible.

It makes sense. Saddam is gone. Iraq has been defanged and will soon be disarmed of WMDs. So what purpose do the UN sanctions now serve?

Only one--the sanctions keep Iraqi oil from competing with Russian oil for market share. And because of this, the Russians want to keep the sanctions in effect. Those post-Commie bastards want to keep starving the Iraqis, just to keep their own position in the world oil markets.

As much as things changed superficially in Russia after the collapse of the USSR, it seems not that much changed beneath the surface. The KGB still pretty much runs things--in the form of Putin, the criminal gangs that control most of the corporate sphere, and so forth. And Russia still has one of the most amoral foreign policies on earth.

UPDATE: Political murder in Moscow? The victim was an opponent of Putin.