It is amazing, if not outrageous, to have top statesmen of two countries abandon all conventionalities of international diplomacy to publicly bargain over the spoils in a country occupied without a clear UN mandate.

It is also amazing that, while negotiating the spoils, neither side no longer even bothers to mention weapons of mass destruction, which was the reason these sanctions were imposed in the first place.

This public horse-trading makes a mockery of U.S. posturing that the entire military operation was meant to disarm a dangerous regime that possessed weapons of mass destruction. It also makes a mockery of Russia's posturing that the argument with the United States is not about money, but about international mandates for use of force against a sovereign nation and principles of global government in general.

Such horse-trading has always been part and will probably remain an inalienable part of realpolitik, but in the past it was at least done behind closed doors rather than in an open manner that shows the Iraqi people to what extent their new government will be a puppet of a global superpower.