Ironically, before oil I would say Iraq was probably one of the most God-forsaken miserable places in the world, terrible climate, poverty, disease, and so forth.  And maybe one of the most faithful decision was made hundred years ago when an up incoming British politician by the name- [IB] by the name of Winston Churchill decided to switch the dreadnoughts of the British fleet from welsh coal which was easily available and secure to Persian oil, and the Iraq- the British in truth went into Iraq in 1914 simply to secure the Abadan Refinery in Iran and the easiest way to get in was to go and through Iraq.  The other reason, of course, is Iraq is a major state in the Middle East.  I always thought of, if you will, Iraq and Egypt in terms of the Eastern Arab world a kind of the bookends of the region and have been major rivals through centuries.  We never paid much attention to Iraq because after the 58th revolution because it turned unfriendly, not really under soviet control by any means but nevertheless not friendly and, of course, we had Iran as our favorite ally in the region to provide the ground troops for the cold war, but with the collapse of Iran, of course, Iraq began to look a lot more attractive and the Iraqis began to behave into somewhat different way.  Saddam said that he wanted to be different and I think what he really wanted was respectability.  He was envisioning himself as the new Nazir, the leader of the Arab world and also the leader of the non-aligned movement and we thought- we hope that he might behave in more responsible way but, of course, our immediate problem at that time was the very unpleasant, dangerous, and violent regime under Ayatollah Khomeini and our fears for our friends in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and so forth.

So, we’ve really gotten  ourselves back into Iraq since 1980 and we are really in it right now and I think will be in it for some time to come.  As a country I see several important characteristics of the country that people don’t talk about very much but I think are relevant.  Number one, there’s a great deal of confusion about the three terms of Iraq being a country, being a state, and being a nation.  My good friend, Peter Galbraith, has written extensively on that Iraq is an artificial creation of 1920 and is breaking up and should be allowed to break up.  I don’t really agree with that.  If you look at Iraq on the map, it is a natural country.  It’s the country of the two rivers.  It’s been a country- a distinct country since almost 5,000 years, ancient civilizations, and it has natural borders, so the mountains in the north, Turkey, mountains in the East, Iran, and then four Arab countries which surrounded in the west and south- I mean desert, and in the middle you have this reasonably arable state watered by the two rivers but Iraq only has been a state now for almost 90 years but that’s true, it’s true even of Turkey itself.