ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Iraqi's efforts to restore its capacity to produce and export its petroleum products and the challenges that hinder these efforts and delay the country's ambitions to become the world's first, or second, oil producer. It details the political and ideological debates among Iraqis concerning the control of oil production and sales, the role of foreign oil corporations and the distribution of revenues. The negotiations were conducted amidst an era of heightened sense of nationalism and sharp criticism of what the Iraqi government considered unfair distribution of benefits between the Iraqi Petroleum Company (IPC) and Iraqi government and the hegemony of the IPC over the operation of the Iraqi oil industry. Only six days before marking the second anniversary of the end of the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait on 2 August 1990, dragging Iraq into a shorter, but more lethal and more destructive war with a coalition of thirty countries.
