Location, Location, Location
“Whatever happens, Iraq is Iraq,” says a Kuwaiti businessman, building hotels in the south. “Iraq will always remain the country with the world’s largest oil reserves and the Middle East’s biggest resources of water.”
One hears similar comments from local and foreign businessmen investing in real estate in Najaf and Karbala. Over 200 million Shiite Muslims regard the cities as holy. Najaf and Karbala have always been dream destinations for pilgrims. Under Saddam Hussein, however, few foreign pilgrims were allowed. With the despot gone, pilgrims are pouring in – and with them the fresh money.
The $40 billion in oil revenues hasn’t hurt either.
December 28th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
Of course, in a couple of years there are going to be a lot of people suing to try to get hold of that $40 billion. A lot of nations who loaned money to Saddam, or who gave him stuff on credit, are going to try to collect from post-Saddam Iraq, and the potential bill is immense.
For the moment those suits are on hold because of a limited-time protection passed by the UN Security Council. (heh) but that protection is going to run out soon, and you can bet the Russians and French and a few others are going to be lining up to try to take their pound of flesh. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out.
Needless to say, my opinion is that the Russians et. al. should get stuffed, and eat their loss.