ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the reasons behind the mismatch between US expectations about Iraqi oil before the invasion of spring 2003 and Iraq's current situation by focusing on the issue of 'petroleum nationalism'. It shows that the main obstacle thwarting the USA's oil politics in Iraq is a peculiar type of nationalism developed by ethnic and religious groups in Iraq, all of which see control of oil resources as a means to sovereign statehood and/or regional independence. US oil politics and strategic aims in Iraq remain the same: to increase production and output levels to the degree of covering occupation costs and generating extra profits. The specific means which Western oil assessors envisaged to achieve this aim has been the proposal to introduce Production Sharing Agreements between oil companies and the Iraqi government. The chapter examines the nature of these agreements to show that, if implemented, they will accentuate tensions in Iraq, corroborating sectarian violence and 'petroleum nationalism'.
