September 14, 2007 - If you are Ray L. Hunt you are the President and CEO of Hunt Oil Company.  If you are Ray L. Hunt you have been a major political supporter of and contributor to George W. Bush. If you are Ray L. Hunt you sit on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and have access to the real facts on the ground in Iraq.  You know that the Iraqi government that the Surge was intended to prop up is ineffective and unable to do anything to unify its country.  You know that it has failed in to come close to achieving agreement what President Bush promised when he announced the Surge, “to give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country’s economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis.” 

If you are Ray L. Hunt you know that the President intends that Iraq will develop as a unified nation, friendly to the US and its policy objectives and that the key to that development is an agreement on the equitable disposition of oil revenues.  You know that oil revenue represents 67% of Iraqi GDP and almost all of its government’s revenue.  You know that without that agreement as to the disposition of oil revenue there will be no Iraq; that it will spin apart and become a chaos of tribes fighting for control of its oil resources.  If you are Ray L. Hunt what do you do?

If you are Ray L. Hunt you know that the richest oil field in Iraq is in the north controlled by the Kurdish regional government.  You know that even under Saddam’s rule the Kurdish north was virtually independent protected by the US declared “no fly zone” which was, as a practical matter, a “no fight” zone.  If you are Ray L. Hunt, President and CEO of Hunt Oil Company and a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board you induce the Kurdish Regional Government to create its own oil law and sign a development and production sharing pact with the Kurds.

Why do you take an action that will destroy the tenuous compromise being worked out in Baghdad to achieve the President’s promise to give every Iraqi a stake in the country’s economy?  You know that despite any surge in troops committed and casualties suffered the Shiite government in Baghdad won’t unify Iraq.  If you are Ray L. Hunt, President and CEO of Hunt Oil Company you know that your first loyalty in to Hunt Oil Stockholders, the majority of which are your relatives.  You know that George W. Bush has always been loyal to his friends and benefactors.  You know that the opportunity is there and you take it knowing that there won’t be any adverse consequences to you or your company.

Now, repeat after me, It’s Not About Oil!