hanging around oil

The Asia Times has a piece on the improbability of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, any time. Pepe Escobar doesn't quote anybody in the Bush Administration as going on the record to state that we're fostering internecine conflict and instability in Iraq. Escobar does mention, though, that

For many Iraqis, Sunni and Shi'ite, Washington's endgame is not withdrawal, but finding the right proxy government: only the naive may believe that an imperial power would voluntarily abandon the dream scenario of a cluster of military bases planted over virtually unlimited reserves of oil.

Washington doesn't even try to disguise it, and in Baghdad, US-appointed interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is widely referred to as either "the man from the Americans" or "Saddam without a moustache".

Then there's this, attributed to no one in particular and everyone in general:

As the Sunni resistance will inevitably become bloodier, balkanization is arguably the preferred Washington strategy - as is widely feared in the Sunni triangle.