* Middle East violence roils Berlin donors meet World powers called for calm in the Middle East on Tuesday after violence in the region shook a Gaza truce.

* Israel’s Olmert averts early poll Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has struck a last-minute deal with the Labour party to save his coalition and avert fresh elections.

* Sarkozy moves to boost Palestinian economy French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas signed an agreement on Tuesday to establish an industrial zone.

* Medvedev wants “serious” pact with EU Russia seeks a “serious” pact with the European Union reaffirming it as part of Europe.

* Israel closes Gaza after rockets Israel says it has closed its border crossings with Gaza in response to a Palestinian rocket attack on southern Israel that breached a ceasefire.

* Top Saudi official: Ball in Israel’s court if it wants peace with us Prince Tourki M. Saud al-Kabeer, Saudi Arabia’s assistant deputy minister for political affairs, said Wednesday that “the ball is in Israel’s court”.

* Majority of French pessimistic about their country’s EU presidency No more than one French person in three believes Paris will be able to boost Europe after Ireland’s rejection of the Lisbon treaty.

* Dubai ‘shape-shifting skyscraper’ unveiled Ambitious plans to build a revolutionary 420-meter shape-shifting skyscraper in Dubai have been unveiled by architects.

* Conservative Anglicans aim to avoid split A new organisation for traditionalists wishing to remain within the Anglican Church is being developed at a breakaway summit.

* MEPs move to make EU enlargement harder MEPs in the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee on Tuesday (24 June) approved an enlargement report.

By: Middle East Times

The affairs of Ireland would seem on the surface to have little to do with the Middle East, despite the occasional deployment of Irish troops as United Nations peacekeepers in the region.

Ireland is one of the few countries whose soldiers are relatively welcome in the region because of the country’s firm policy of neutrality, maintained throughout World War II and the Cold War. And that tradition of neutrality is one of the several factors that explain the rejection in last week’s Irish referendum of the new European treaty.

By delaying or possibly derailing the European Union’s Treaty of Lisbon, the Irish rejection by 54 percent to 46 percent keeps off the chessboard of the Middle East one of the potentially decisive players.

It is remarkable that Europe, by far the biggest trade partner for Israel and the North African states alike, has been sidelined in the geopolitics of its neighbor region on the far shore of the Mediterranean Sea.

Britain and France are the traditional colonial powers in the Middle East. Europe is now home to large numbers, over 10 million, of immigrants from the region. France and Britain are home to the world’s two largest Jewish communities after the United States and Israel.

Europe is the obvious market and one of the main obvious sources of investment for the region. English and French are the two common languages of the Middle East after Arabic and Hebrew. The EU’s achievement as a multi-national entity that has forged reconciliation and economic union among traditionally warring countries should be a shining example to the Middle East of a potentially more hopeful and harmonious future.

And yet apart from a constant dole to the Palestinians and some peacekeeping troops in Lebanon and the disappointingly modest results of the trade agreements known as the Barcelona process, the European Union plays but a minor role in Middle East affairs.

Indeed, given that the EU is now by far the world’s largest and richest economic grouping and the most generous donor of humanitarian aid with more troops under arms than the United States, the European Union plays a curiously minor role on the world stage.

The Lisbon Treaty, which would establish a permanent EU president and foreign minister with its own diplomatic service, was supposed to change all that. It was intended to start giving the European Union a political weight and international presence more in keeping with its economic standing.

Not that the European Union seeks to replace or even to join the United States as a superpower, but it does want to be taken seriously in its own neighborhood. The EU’s failure – until the U.S. intervened – to play an effective role in its own backyard during the Balkan wars of the 1990s remains a source of shame. That empty boast of Luxembourg foreign minister Jacques Poos as Yugoslavia began to break up – the hour of Europe is at hand – still rankles.

So by rejecting the Lisbon Treaty, the Irish have put off yet again the day when the European Union could play a serious role in the Middle East.

By: Haviv Rettig – The Jerusalem Post

A new Jewish Agency committee set to be established on Tuesday will be charged with developing a serious plan to reshape the connection between Israel and Diaspora Jews. The move marks a step forward from internal government discussions in March that addressed working on changing this relationship.

Olmert calls for dramatic change in the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora

The Jewish Agency Board of Governors is expected to announce the new task force, called the “Committee for Strengthening the Connection to World Jewry” at a meeting in Jerusalem on Tuesday. It will be a joint Jewish Agency and government initiative.

The task force is a result of a new Diaspora policy formed by the Prime Minister’s Office that focuses heavily on investing in Jewish communities abroad, particularly in Jewish education. Cabinet secretary Ovad Yehezkel said the new relationship would mark a more “humble” Israeli policy toward the Diaspora.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Jewish Agency Chairman Ze’ev Bielski will presumably appoint the task force members, who will have until February 2009 to present specific recommendations.

“We’re going to work fast,” said a PMO official. “We hope to present 99 percent of the plan already in November,” at the next Board of Governors meeting and to the next United Jewish Communities General Assembly, which takes place in Jerusalem.

At the opening session of the Board of Governors on Sunday morning, Olmert explained that the current relationship must change because world Jewry has changed.

“Although there are islands of Jewish renaissance and creativity in many Jewish centers around the world, world Jewry is in crisis,” Olmert said. He cited figures showing decreasing attachment to Israel specifically among North American youth who tend to have higher assimilation and intermarriage rates throughout the Jewish world.

“Now, for the first time since the destruction of the Second Temple, Israel is the largest concentration of Jews in the world and the overwhelming majority of Jews live in security. The era of mass aliya from countries of distress may have come to a close,” Olmert declared.

“With new realities comes the need for a new paradigm,” the prime minister continued. The old paradigm of “Diaspora as benefactor and Israel as beneficiary will no longer continue,” he vowed. “For the past 60 years Israel was the project of the Jewish people, for the next 60 years the Jewish people will need to be the joint project of Israel and the Jewish people.”

Olmert also mentioned programs including Taglit, Masa, the Heftsiba day schools in the former Soviet Union, Morasha, and other Israel-Diaspora programs in which the government is heavily invested.

“All these interventions have been episodic, and not systematic,” the prime minister said, promising that “in Israel’s 60th year the time has come to significantly change the paradigm.”

For its part, the Jewish Agency issued a statement “applauding” the prime minister’s intention to significantly increase the government’s “commitment, responsibility and investment in securing the future of the Jewish People.”

* Netanyahu: Jerusalem won’t be divided “Jerusalem will never be divided,” Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu told French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

* Israel ‘will attack Iran’ before new US president sworn in, John Bolton predicts John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations, has predicted that Israel could attack Iran after the November presidential election.

* Arab World nuclear race / Who has what, and from where Israel is following with interest the closer nuclear ties France is forging with the Arab world.

* EU sanctions illegal, says Iran Iran has condemned as illegal new EU sanctions against Tehran over its uranium enrichment program.

* ‘Rafah won’t open until Schalit return’ Egypt announced that it would not open the Rafah border crossing until kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit is returned to Israel.

* European nuclear weapons sites not secure, says US report Most European sites containing US nuclear weapons are failing to meet security standards set by the Pentagon.

* China quake death toll to ‘exceed 80,000’ Officially 69,181 people are dead with another missing 18,498, according to authorities.

* U.S. Evangelists Join the Battle for Souls in Egypt A third front in the battle for – literally – souls, in Egypt has appeared in the form of U.S.-based evangelical Christian churches.

* IAEA Chief: Iran Could Make Nuke In 6 Months The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Iran could create a nuclear weapon in six months.

* Sarkozy to meet Palestinian president in Bethlehem French President Nicolas Sarkozy was to hold talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in Bethlehem on Tuesday as he wrapped up a visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank.

By: Robert Maginnis – Human Events

The New York Times reported last week that Israel carried out a major military exercise in early June that appears to be a rehearsal “…to develop the military’s capacity to carry out long-range strikes and to demonstrate the seriousness with which Israel views Iran’s nuclear program.” More than 100 Israeli warplanes — including F-16 and F-15 fighters, refueling tankers and helicopters for pilot rescue – participated in the maneuvers in the eastern Mediterranean.

The message of the exercise, concludes the Times, was that Israel is prepared to act militarily if diplomatic efforts fail to stop Iran’s nuclear program. Such an attack would certainly destroy most of the above-ground Iranian nuclear facilities and set back Iran’s nuclear program a few years. But the Iranian response to such an attack would be serious for Israel and potentially worse for the United States.

The latest edition of the German news weekly Der Spiegel echoes the Times’ view that Israel is making final preparations to strike Iran and concludes that there is “…a broad consensus (in Israel) in favor of a military strike against Tehran’s nuclear facilities.”

Der Spiegel says Israel’s main proponent for military action is transport minister (and former defense minister) Shaul Mofaz, who says action against Iran, is “unavoidable.” Iran “…would disappear before Israel does,” said Mofaz in response to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadenejad’s incendiary threats to “wipe Israel off the map.” “If Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective,” said Mofaz.

The German magazine concludes, “In Israel, it is no longer a matter of whether there will be a military strike, but when.” Der Spiegel states that “…time is running out” because “Israel can only depend on American support for as long as … President George W. Bush is still in charge in Washington.”

Tehran sees nuclear weapons as an “…insurance policy for the regime,” explained Efraim Inbar, the director for Israel’s Center for Strategic Studies, because “…it’s more difficult to destabilize a country armed with nuclear weapons” and besides the mullahs believe nuclear weapons are the key to influence over the region’s oil reserves and will deter “an American invasion.”

Nuclear arms will also compel Iran’s neighbors to redraw alliances so as to favor Tehran and Inbar believes a Persian nuclear umbrella will “…strengthen all its regional radical allies, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine….”

The most predictable piece of this puzzle is the military operation. An excellent analysis of how Israel might destroy Iranian nuclear sites was published in 2006 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program, “Osirak Redux? Assessing Israeli Capabilities to Destroy Iranian Nuclear Facilities.” The study looks back at the 1981 Israeli attack on the Iraqi nuclear program and applies those lessons to the likely result of a raid against Iranian facilities.

The study details the Israeli decision process that led up to the June 1981 attack which destroyed Iraq’s Osirak reactor. In October 1980, the Mossad intelligence service told Prime Minister Menachem Begin that the reactor would be fueled and operational by June 1981. Apparently, that became Israel’s red line and motivated Begin to order the strike. The study doesn’t suggest a comparable red line for the Iranian situation, however.

The Iraq raid seemed almost flawless. “A sixteen-plane strike package launched from Etzion airbase in the Sinai. The flight profile was low altitude, across the Gulf of Aqaba, southern Jordan and then across northern Saudi Arabia. Two F-15s remained circling over Saudi Arabia as a communications link back to Israel,” states the report. Eight of the sixteen bombs released by Israeli fighters struck the Osirak containment dome and the target was destroyed. All aircraft returned home.

The report suggests the Iranians, learning from the Osirak raid, have carefully concealed their nuclear facilities and spread them throughout the country.

The study narrows Israel’s Iranian targets to three critical nodes: Esfahan, with its conversion facility, the Natanz enrichment facility and the heavy water plant and future plutonium production reactors at Arak. All three could provide Iran with fissile material for nuclear weapons.

The study further analyzes munitions for each target set. Israel possesses an array of laser guided bombs with Global Positioning System devices that are bunker busters which can penetrate deep through concrete and earth. The authors recommend the number and sizes of Israeli bombs required to destroy each target set and describe the expected effects.

Israel’s deep strike capability has improved since the 1981 Osirak operation, states the report. Tel Aviv has the F-15I Ra’am and F-16I Soufa, which are configured for deep strike missions. They are equipped with conformal fuel tanks and can carry external drop tanks which extend their combat range to more than 1,300 miles while carrying four 2000-pound bombs. Additionally, the bombers are protected by F-15Is which have a sophisticated electronic warfare and countermeasures system and an array of air-to-air combat weapons.

The authors believe Israel would conduct the mission using 25 F-15Is and 25 F-16Is and should anticipate a 40 percent (10 aircraft) loss to Iranian air defense. However, the study concludes that Israel does possess “…the capability to destroy even well-hardened targets in Iran with some degree of confidence. The operation appears to be no more risky than the earlier attack on Osirak….”

The consequences of such an operation are less predictable than the results of a military raid, however. Middle East expert and former CIA agent Bruce Riedel says an Israeli strike would lead to Iranian retaliation directed “at both Israel and the US.” The consequences would be fatal, says Riedel. “We will see a Middle East in flames.”

Likely, Iran would respond by unleashing its proxy terror group Hezbollah to attack Israel with rockets much as it did in 2006. It might launch its Al Quds (Jerusalem) Force against American forces in Iraq and could use long-range missiles against American bases in Amman, Qatar, Kuwait and Iraq. Iran may even use its Hezbollah cells in the Americas and elsewhere to target American and Israeli sites.

The price of oil will certainly spike because Iran would seek to shutdown the Straits of Hormuz, the 12-mile wide mouth of the Persian Gulf through which most of the region’s fuel passes.

If the attack occurs prior to the US presidential election, Senator Barack Obama could benefit from a voter backlash because the public would likely surmise that Israel would not have launched without the tacit approval of the Bush administration.

In the end, the US would be left to clean-up after the shooting stops. That would require more forces in the Persian Gulf region to contain Tehran and a task force off the Lebanese coast to support the likely Israeli war with Hezbollah.

This is the situation America’s new president might inherit should Israel launch an attack this fall. Iran’s nuclear program will be set-back a few years but Tehran will be re-energized to quickly rebuild its destroyed facilities. The Mideast will be on edge more than it is now and America’s regional footprint will grow. What’s less clear are the global ramifications of rising fuel costs and what other regional powers like Pakistan and global powers like Russia and China might do to further destabilize the crisis.

Mr. Maginnis is a retired Army lieutenant colonel, a national security and foreign affairs analyst for radio and television and a senior strategist with the U.S. Army.

* Sarkozy to the Knesset: Nuclear Iran is ‘totally unacceptable’ The French leader addressed the plenum and stressed that his country would not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.

* Oil price up despite Saudi pledge Oil prices have risen after emergency talks among the world’s top oil powers and leading consuming nations over the weekend ended with no real resolution.

* Sarkozy: “Move Jews Out of Judea and Samaria” French President Nicolas Sarkozy asked the Knesset on Monday to recognize that “France will always be Israel’s friend”.

* Sarkozy urges Palestinian state French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said the creation of a Palestinian state is in the best interests of Israel and its citizens.

* King Abdullah: Failure of peace process largest regional threat Jordan’s King Abdullah II told the Washington Post’s Lally Weymouth that he was dissatisfied with US President George W. Bush’s most recent visit to the region.

* Olmert met with Osirak attack planner Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with Colonel (res.) Aviam Sela, who is said to have been the architect behind Israel’s attack against Iraq’s nuclear reactor.

* Bishops criticise Anglican leader Conservative Anglican leaders have opened talks in Jerusalem on the future of the Church with criticism of its leader, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

* Task force to probe Diaspora investment A new Jewish Agency committee set to be established on Tuesday will be charged with developing a serious plan to reshape the connection between Israel and Diaspora Jews.

* ‘Shake-up’ for internet proposed The net could see its biggest transformation in decades if plans to open up the address system are passed.

* ‘PM says peace document likely this yr.’ A temporary document outlining the general principles of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement can be expected to be compiled by the end of the year.

* Iran: Israeli drill jeopardizes global peace and security Iran criticized on Saturday a recent Israeli military exercise that US officials said was designed to show Jerusalem’s ability to attack Teheran’s nuclear sites.

* Iran dismisses ‘attack by Israel’ Iran has said it considers a military attack on its nuclear facilities by Israel as “impossible”.

* ElBaradei: I’ll resign if Iran attacked International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamad ElBaradei, will quit his position in the event of a military strike on Iran.

* Boost to oil output likely Saudi Arabia and other producers with oil to spare could agree to raise output at an emergency meeting of energy powers this weekend.

* Martian Ice Discovered Beneath Red Soil, NASA Says The existence of ice on Mars was confirmed today by NASA scientists.

* Israel shows abilities for Iran strike A large Israeli military exercise this month may have been aimed at showing Jerusalem’s abilities to attack Iranian nuclear facilities.

* Ireland refuses to deliver timetable on EU treaty solution Over the course of hours of crisis talks in Brussels, Ireland found itself under heavy pressure to do something to fix its voters’ rejection of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty.

* In Iraq’s successes, the seeds of vulnerability Violence in all of Iraq is the lowest since March 2004. Its two largest cities, Baghdad and Basra, are calmer than they have been for years.

* Fans celebrate German soccer win with Nazi chants Dozens of far-right revelers celebrated the German national soccer team’s victory over Portugal on Thursday night by chanting Nazi-era slogans in the streets of an eastern town.

* ‘Hamas can’t stop weapons-smuggling’ Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh denied on Friday that Hamas had agreed to stop weapons-smuggling efforts on Gaza’s border with Egypt.

By: Robert Maginnis – Human Events

In 1952, Republican presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower was critical of our Korean War effort but didn’t visit the war front until after elected. Today, Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, is critical of our Iraq war effort but visited the war zone two years ago. Obama needs a refresher visit before the election and not only because he’s no Eisenhower, but because Iraq has improved and Baghdad may soon give America its walking papers thus creating a major challenge for the next president.

Eisenhower was a retired Army five-star general who had been Supreme Commander in Europe in World War II. He knew what to look for in a major ground war and needed no on-the-ground visits to understand the strategic challenges. Nonetheless, despite his rich experience candidate Eisenhower admitted that only a visit to Korea would help him to “…learn how best to serve the American people in the cause of peace.”

The presumptive Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain is a retired naval aviator who has visited Iraq eight times, most recently this March. McCain, like Eisenhower, understands that experiencing the war zone is something wannabe commanders-in-chief must do. That’s why McCain has encouraged Senator Obama to revisit Iraq.

“I’m confident that when he [Obama] goes he will then change his position on the conflict in Iraq,” said McCain. But Obama spokesman Bill Burton retorted that it was “…odd that Senator McCain, who bought the flawed rationale for war so readily, would be lecturing others on their depth of understanding about Iraq.”

There are risks associated with another trip for Obama, however. An army colonel in Baghdad said that if Obama returns to Iraq he will “be surprised” by the improvements which “…might change some of his thoughts.” A reality check could make a shambles of Obama’s entire Iraq position and alienate a major pool of supporters. Cynically, even if he went, he might feel compelled to explain away any improvements observed.

To his credit, Obama says he is considering a foreign trip this summer and “Iraq would obviously be at the top of the list of stops.” “I think that if I’m going to Iraq, then I’m there to talk to troops and talk to commanders, I’m not there to try to score political points or perform,” Mr. Obama said. This begs the question: Why take a foreign trip if not to visit the war zone? Besides, politicians in full campaign mode “…try to score political points” at every turn.

However hypothetically, should Obama make the trip he will find that Iraq has improved in many areas and that won’t comport with his campaign rhetoric. Specifically, neighborhoods once controlled by al Qaeda have been liberated. Sectarian violence is down and cooperation from Iraqis is stronger than ever.

A new security phenomena is the 90,000-strong Sons of Iraq (formerly known as Concerned Local Citizens), the local security militia paid $10 per day to maintain order and to collect intelligence in their neighborhoods. A US colonel says the Sons of Iraq is a “…permanent security solution” that gets “…people to stand up and assume security of their own given area.”

Senator Obama will learn that Iraq’s economy is surging. The International Monetary Fund announced that Iraq’s gross domestic product will rise seven percent in 2009 and its inflation which peaked at 65 percent in 2006 is projected to be 12 percent for 2008.

Iraq is weaning itself from American aid. This year Iraqis will outspend the US for reconstruction by more than 10 to one, and American funding for large-scale reconstruction projects will approach zero. Also, the US share of Iraq’s security costs are dropping and we expect Iraq will soon shoulder the full burden of these costs. Much of the good economic news is due to oil revenues which this year are expected to reach a record $70 billion.

Perhaps most importantly, Iraq is making significant political progress from the bottom-up. Iraqi leaders increasingly act together, share power, and forge compromises such as the Amnesty and De-baathification laws. Fall elections should consolidate this progress at the provincial level to help locals settle disputes through politics rather than violence.

All the improvements mask a serious problem for Washington and Obama ought to visit to best understand the dynamics. We are negotiating a political time bomb with the Iraqis that could quickly propel US forces out of Iraq at Baghdad’s request. The next president must thoroughly understand this challenge.

For months, Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador to Iraq, and members of the Iraqi government have been negotiating a bilateral Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) — the time bomb — to replace the United Nations mandate that expires in December 2008 and allows foreign troops in Iraq. Crocker promises that any US-Iraq agreement will “…reaffirm Baghdad’s full sovereignty.” But that agreement is in jeopardy.

Iraq’s most revered Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani opposes the proposed agreement. Sistani said he would not allow Iraq to sign such a deal with “the US occupiers” as long as he was alive. This stark view is shared by many in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shia-dominated government as well as many in the government’s Sunni opposition.

That’s why it is quite possible that the UN mandate will expire and there will be no SOFA with Iraq. That would mean the US must leave. And isn’t that what we have said we are fighting for? To give the Iraqis their country back? We would lose all credibility if we do otherwise and it would validate al Qaeda’s points that we are just there to occupy Iraq. We’re kind of stuck.

No matter the circumstances that cause America to leave Iraq, Obama and the rest of Washington should be concerned that Baghdad is unprepared to survive without our help and regional instability could grow especially if Iran seeks to fill the vacuum. What will the next president do? The best we could do is withdraw to Kuwait and be ready to respond. That would deter Iran and reassure our regional allies like Saudi Arabia.

In December 1952, President-Elect Eisenhower traveled to Korea to “find an honorable way to end the war.” The Korean Armistice was signed the following August. A similar timeline ought to be on the mind of our next president.

America deserves a substantive debate between the presidential candidates on how this war can be brought to an honorable end. That’s why in-depth, on-the-ground experience for both candidates is an absolute necessity and especially now that the Iraqis appear ready to push America out the door creating more instability.

* Russia warns against attacking Iran Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday warned against the use of force on Iran.

* U.S. says exercise by Israel seemed directed at Iran Israel carried out a major military exercise earlier this month that American officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

* World population to hit 7 billion in 2012 The world’s population will reach 7 billion in 2012, even as the global community struggles to satisfy its appetite for natural resources.

* Iran: We’ll hit back with ‘strong blow’ Iran on Friday warned Israel it would retaliate to an attack with a “strong blow,” after the New York Times reported that the IAF had conducted a drill.

* Czech threat looms for EU treaty EU leaders have admitted that the Czech Republic may not be able to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, which has already been rejected by the Irish.

* Hamas TV Teaches Youth to Kidnap IDF Soldiers While Gaza terrorists replenish their arms and ammunition during the temporary truce that began Thursday morning, Hamas TV is broadcasting a training video.

* Jerusalem officials to High Court: Gay parade desecrates holy city Jerusalem’s mayor and city manager urged the High Court of Justice on Thursday to prevent the Gay Pride parade from taking place in the capital next Thursday.

* UN classifies rape a ‘war tactic’ The UN Security Council has voted unanimously in favour of a resolution classifying rape as a weapon of war.

* Ireland’s Choice may Affect European Clout The affairs of Ireland would seem on the surface to have little to do with the Middle East.

* Israel’s Messianic Jews: Police indifferent to threats against us Safety pins and screws are still lodged in 15-year-old Ami Ortiz’s body three months after he opened a booby-trapped gift basket sent to his family.

By: Andrew E. Kramer – The International Herald Tribune

Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.

Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.

The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations.

The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India. The contracts, which would run for one to two years and are relatively small by industry standards, would nonetheless give the companies an advantage in bidding on future contracts in a country that many experts consider to be the best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production.

There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract. The Bush administration has said that the war was necessary to combat terrorism. It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraq’s Oil Ministry.

Sensitive to the appearance that they were profiting from the war and already under pressure because of record high oil prices, senior officials of two of the companies, speaking only on the condition that they not be identified, said they were helping Iraq rebuild its decrepit oil industry.

For an industry being frozen out of new ventures in the world’s dominant oil-producing countries, from Russia to Venezuela, Iraq offers a rare and prized opportunity.

While enriched by $140 per barrel oil, the oil majors are also struggling to replace their reserves as ever more of the world’s oil patch becomes off limits. Governments in countries like Bolivia and Venezuela are nationalizing their oil industries or seeking a larger share of the record profits for their national budgets. Russia and Kazakhstan have forced the major companies to renegotiate contracts.

The Iraqi government’s stated goal in inviting back the major companies is to increase oil production by half a million barrels per day by attracting modern technology and expertise to oil fields now desperately short of both. The revenue would be used for reconstruction, although the Iraqi government has had trouble spending the oil revenues it now has, in part because of bureaucratic inefficiency.

For the American government, increasing output in Iraq, as elsewhere, serves the foreign policy goal of increasing oil production globally to alleviate the exceptionally tight supply that is a cause of soaring prices.

The Iraqi Oil Ministry, through a spokesman, said the no-bid contracts were a stop-gap measure to bring modern skills into the fields while the oil law was pending in Parliament.

It said the companies had been chosen because they had been advising the ministry without charge for two years before being awarded the contracts, and because these companies had the needed technology.

A Shell spokeswoman hinted at the kind of work the companies might be engaged in. “We can confirm that we have submitted a conceptual proposal to the Iraqi authorities to minimize current and future gas flaring in the south through gas gathering and utilization,” said the spokeswoman, Marnie Funk. “The contents of the proposal are confidential.”

While small, the deals hold great promise for the companies.

“The bigger prize everybody is waiting for is development of the giant new fields,” Leila Benali, an authority on Middle East oil at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said in a telephone interview from the firm’s Paris office. The current contracts, she said, are a “foothold” in Iraq for companies striving for these longer-term deals.

Any Western oil official who comes to Iraq would require heavy security, exposing the companies to all the same logistical nightmares that have hampered previous attempts, often undertaken at huge cost, to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure.

And work in the deserts and swamps that contain much of Iraq’s oil reserves would be virtually impossible unless carried out solely by Iraqi subcontractors, who would likely be threatened by insurgents for cooperating with Western companies.

Yet at today’s oil prices, there is no shortage of companies coveting a contract in Iraq. It is not only one of the few countries where oil reserves are up for grabs, but also one of the few that is viewed within the industry as having considerable potential to rapidly increase production.

David Fyfe, a Middle East analyst at the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based group that monitors oil production for the developed countries, said he believed that Iraq’s output could increase to about 3 million barrels a day from its current 2.5 million, though it would probably take longer than the six months the Oil Ministry estimated.

Fyfe’s organization estimated that repair work on existing fields could bring Iraq’s output up to roughly four million barrels per day within several years. After new fields are tapped, Iraq is expected to reach a plateau of about six million barrels per day, Fyfe said, which could suppress current world oil prices.

The contracts, the two oil company officials said, are a continuation of work the companies had been conducting here to assist the Oil Ministry under two-year-old memorandums of understanding. The companies provided free advice and training to the Iraqis. This relationship with the ministry, said company officials and an American diplomat, was a reason the contracts were not opened to competitive bidding.

A total of 46 companies, including the leading oil companies of China, India and Russia, had memorandums of understanding with the Oil Ministry, yet were not awarded contracts.

The no-bid deals are structured as service contracts. The companies will be paid for their work, rather than offered a license to the oil deposits. As such, they do not require the passage of an oil law setting out terms for competitive bidding. The legislation has been stalled by disputes among Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties over revenue sharing and other conditions.

The first oil contracts for the majors in Iraq are exceptional for the oil industry.

They include a provision that could allow the companies to reap large profits at today’s prices: the ministry and companies are negotiating payment in oil rather than cash.

“These are not actually service contracts,” Benali said. “They were designed to circumvent the legislative stalemate” and bring Western companies with experience managing large projects into Iraq before the passage of the oil law.

A clause in the draft contracts would allow the companies to match bids from competing companies to retain the work once it is opened to bidding, according to the Iraq country manager for a major oil company who did not consent to be cited publicly discussing the terms.

Assem Jihad, the Oil Ministry spokesman, said the ministry chose companies it was comfortable working with under the charitable memorandum of understanding agreements, and for their technical prowess. “Because of that, they got the priority,” he said.

In all cases but one, the same company that had provided free advice to the ministry for work on a specific field was offered the technical support contract for that field, one of the companies’ officials said.

The exception is the West Qurna field in southern Iraq, outside Basra. There, the Russian company Lukoil, which claims a Saddam-era contract for the field, had been providing free training to Iraqi engineers, but a consortium of Chevron and Total, a French company, was offered the contract. A spokesman for Lukoil declined to comment.

Charles Ries, the chief economic official in the American Embassy in Baghdad, described the no-bid contracts as a bridging mechanism to bring modern technology into the fields before the oil law was passed, and as an extension of the earlier work without charge.

To be sure, these are not the first foreign oil contracts in Iraq, and all have proved contentious.

The Kurdistan regional government, which in many respects functions as an independent entity in northern Iraq, has concluded a number of deals. Hunt Oil Company of Dallas, for example, signed a production-sharing agreement with the regional government last fall, though its legality is questioned by the central Iraqi government. The technical support agreements, however, are the first commercial work by the major oil companies in Iraq.

The impact, experts say, could be remarkable increases in Iraqi oil output.

While the current contracts are unrelated to the companies’ previous work in Iraq, in a twist of corporate history for some of the world’s largest companies, all four oil majors that had lost their concessions in Iraq are now back.

But a spokesman for Exxon said the company’s approach to Iraq was no different from its work elsewhere.

“Consistent with our longstanding, global business strategy, ExxonMobil would pursue business opportunities as they arise in Iraq, just as we would in other countries in which we are permitted to operate,” the spokesman, Len D’Eramo, said in an e-mailed statement.

But the company is clearly aware of the history. In an interview with Newsweek last fall, the former chief executive of Exxon, Lee Raymond, praised Iraq’s potential as an oil-producing country and added that Exxon was in a position to know. “There is an enormous amount of oil in Iraq,” Raymond said. “We were part of the consortium, the four companies that were there when Saddam Hussein threw us out, and we basically had the whole country.”