Iraq - Which Way Out?

Great Debates
61

Iraq has not in fact been liberated, they have been conquored. The conquoring power, claims that it was liberating them, now that it’s original claim of having been defending itself is shown to be bullshit. At the moment, it is just a claim. And one that the Iraqi people are justified in not believing.

They will have actually been liberated at the point free elections are allowed, and the USA either withdraws it’s troops or is invited to stay. Until that time, saying that they have been liberated is, quite simply, a lie.

Now, I’m sure Sam is well aware that the planned elections have been cancelled indefinitely. But still he uses the term liberated.

It is also a lie to say that they are better off. As Col has already pointed out. Trading a brutal dictatorship in which there was basic power, water, and security from crime for a combination of anarchy and occupation, rampant crime, uncertain power and water. This is by no means an improvement.

Now, we do anticipate that someday the power will get fixed and the police will begin functioning again, and on that day they will (presumably) not be under the thumb of a brutal dictator. But that day is not yet, nor is it in the forseeable future the way things are going.

But hey. Iraqis are ecstatic about being liberated, and no amount of facts on the ground that say otherwise are going to get in the way of a good opinion. …RIIIGHT…

62

Be afraid, Bushies. Be very afraid.

63

You could also point to Sierra Leone, where UN and ECOMOG forces are widely credited with ending a long and brutal civil war, and setting up a viable program for transition. As others have pointed out, the UN’s failures in Rwanda and the Congo have to do with Security Council members refusing to authorize action. Here, perception does matter, since US troops will inevitably be seen as an imperialist force.

64

That would be doubling the actual estimated pre-war 2002 national per capita income.

The per capita income c. 2002 was est. at $1k-1.5K, something on the order of a 70 percent drop from the highs in the 1970s and 1980s.

Insofar as the Iraqi economy has effectively ceased to operate at all, one can expect real income has dropped further from that point.

Precipitously, yes, much of the 70 percent decrease seems to have occured during the 1990s.

The first half of the 1980s was not that bad, ex. the war deaths, but the economy appears to have begun coming apart as it dragged on.

Further to that, Iraqis on the ground are making highly unflattering comparisions between post-war recovery under Sadaam in 1990, where national mobilization was intense, and the post-war chaos under the present ‘Provisional Government.’

The comparision is perhaps unfair in a strictly logical sense, insofar as it would be expected that a collapsed government makes things harder in tems of mobilization than a fairly efficient police state, but frankly the average Mohammed doesn’t care for political abstractions right now. What the average Mohammed can see is that Sadaam’s well oiled state got Iraq more or less up and running with brutal efficiency after the war in 1990, whereas the Americas can’t seem to get their heads out of their political asses to focus on practicalities, and car jackings, random and not so random violence, looting etc. continue at levels the Iraqis have never seen in their lifetimes.

Sam can go on about the bright future, although as I have indicated in the past, achieving the bright future depends on attracting levels of net capital flows equal to that of all the region plus Africa, to one unstable country alone.

This is a non-trivial hurdle, and Sam et al’s minimizing of the challenges and the danger of the situation with absurd comparisions to Des Moines do not help.

Americans need a rather large political mobilization to make Iraq work, and that includes ponying up the political capital to say this is going to be painful and expensive but in for a fucking penny, in for a fucking pound.

Or perhaps we’ll settle for Afghanistan II, and someone will tell us about the 500 penny ante development programs doing so much good as the country stumbles on in chaos.

65

A number of UN bodies have some pretty damned good staff, and with regional expertise that far exceeds the rather poor pool the US has at hand.

Depends on how it was done and in what context.

Internationalization does have some popular support as far as I can tell from my contacts. Taking away the sting of occupation.

66

I apologize again for the excesses. However I do disagree with some fundamental characterizations, but I think that is fairly clear.

Yes, and they want such a government, interim or permanent set up soon, which is not in the cards.

Now I sympathize and inpart support Bremmer’s decision on this, but that leads to radically different characterizations of the situation than your spin. Radically.

I see you have back-peddled on the estatic claim.

Because I love you so.

Actually yours was the first message that caught my eye, and my irritation with the downplaying of challenges remains high.

Now, Sam, I understand and indeed support your desire to support the reconstruction operation, and cheap shots at Bush are not perhaps helpful.

However the reality is that so far reconstruction is a botched job and this Administration needs to fucking mobilize. I’m sitting hear still waiting, more than a month now, for word on investment guarantees. This kind of stuff, these mechanics should have been in place already. Numerous detials …

Let me be categorical, for htose of us looking at this here, it’s pretty fucking clear that initial plans were inadequate and to date inadequate materials and support have been mobilized. Way too much improvisation by way too many people with way too little knowledge of the region and its issues. That’s a serious damned problem. Serious.

People like you would serve the cause better if you started thumping for the Admin to pony up some capital and roll up the sleeves, and stop minimizing the problems. Pretending is not the way to overcome the challenge, getting serious about the analysis and digging in is.

Or so my experience tells me.

67

Correction on Iraqi per capita GDP data.

Just took another look at my data tables, and the characterization I gave is off.

The following I believe is rebased on 2000 dollars and exchange rates, but the footnoting on the table is not clearly expressed so take caution:

1970s to 1979 saw a per capita GDP of ~ 10-15K, with large fluctuations.

1980s saw a collapse to 8-5k range, again with long term decline and substantial year on year fluctuations.

1990s saw collapse to the 1K level.

2003? Well, who know what’s the current GDP.

68

I further thought this would be of interest for our resident lawyers:
http://www.export.gov/iraq/pdf/iraq_commercial_law_current.pdf

Minty, Dewey and others are likely to find this at once interesting and in part horrifying. I’ve put some of my lawyers in touch with these guys to help clarify what they tell me are errors. For my part, it’s all par for the course.

As a general matter, however, thoughts are welcome, might be fun to see what your reaction is to the state of law in our fine region.

69

Gee that’s a mighty drop in per capita GDP isn’t it Coll? Holy shit… from 10-15K almost 25 years ago to under 2K in 2003.

Man, that’s a country which must really be hurting. Every aspect of their lives must have copped a total trashing over the last 2 decades - in terms of quality of lifestyle.

Poor bastards… what a dreadful fate.

70

I read through the executive summary, but nothing there particularly surprised me. Par for the course for such regimes, really. My only surprise is that they’re apparently still describing those laws as if they’re actually in effect, which does not seem to me to be the most effective way of bringing badly-needed capital into the country. It’s something of a joke to insist that foreigners cannot own the “means of production” when the entire bloody country is being occupied and controlled (kind of controlled, anyway) by foreign armies.

71

I thought Iraq has been liberated, not occupied?

“Hey, fuck your constitution, we control the country and we say who is allowed to own what!”

Let’s see if the Iraqis will appreciate that…

72

I read that Executive Summary as well Minty. I’m currently working on some other stuff so I didn’t get much past Page 12 or so.

It’ll be interesting to see, if resistance to reforms to commercial law within Iraq manifests itself in the near future, as to how much of that resistance is based on sound logic, and how much will be based on pride being hurt by once again, having an outside power implement yet another series of legal frameworks.

73

In reality it is likely under USD 1000 now.

Well, now you understand the benchmarks and the dangers.

Further to that, I would hazard the opinion that support for continued American presence hinges on an almost magical faith in a rebound in living standards. Iraqis, and indeed Arabs in general have some… somewhat exagerated ideas about what can be achieved by the US.

That is, regretably, very, very dangerous.

74

Well, unless abrogated, the law of the land remains the law of the land, despite some magical thinking seen on these boards in the past 3 months.

CPA-I has suspended some portions, however others are considered too sensitive to touch. Ownership clauses, e.g., can’t be seen as being abrogated by the occupying power or you’re in a world of shit in re legitmacy.

As for the capital, well, … yes. Read over the briefings from the Jordan based CPA office and their encouraging assertions that the risk is manageable, just be creative! Easy for them to say, when you’ve got a situation of no clear title, little ability to vet partners and “Western” targets being shot at with moderately heavy weaponry. Fucking fabulous.

Ownership… beneficial control… Come on man, get creative.

You should see some of the draft contracts our lawyers have been kicking about.

Needless to say, at present, everything is cash first, delivery second. No LCs, no fucking nothing. That’s fucking brilliant for trade, and USG still hasn’t advanced a plan for facilities. I saw some advance thinking, it looked good but it depended on securitizing a good deal of petrol receipts and I don’t know the numbers make sense. Further to that, you need legit. backing on the securities, that means USG ponying up some major insurance commitments.

Like I said, this ain’t the self-funding little war our innocents thought it was going to be.

75
76

As an economic naif, some things stand out in glaring relief.

When we say “investment”, what do we mean? Its really a lot like a loan, isn’t it? The capital is invested in expectation of return, with interest. And theres the rub, no? Because interest is coupled with risk, in most minds. Iraq must then be the biggest “junk bond” market in Creation.

Much has been said about the need for major investment in Iraq’s oil industry in order to bring it “up to snuff”. Not being a sophisticate in these things, I dont place a lot of trust in the estimates I’ve read, they’re kind of all over the map. So lets just leave it at: “Lots! Great big slobbering hunks of cash!” Call it investment if you like, but its still more of a loan, and the interest rate is going to be a doozy because, after all, nobody can be really sure whats going to happen unless…unless…

America is the guarantor, one way or the other. We either stay, and condemn our troops to a miserable occupation of a hostile nation, and thus guarantee the safety and surety of investment OR…

We guarantee the loans directly. If France, say, will invest in Iraqi oil production, at a modest/reasonable rate of interest, we will guarantee they will get thier money. Of course, this would depend on a wildly optimistic view of Iraq’s future. Wild and unsubstantiated optimism seems to be the order of the day on the Potomac.

Of course, we will be mortgaging oil that really doesn’t belong to us, but why spoil such a lovely thing with a taint of legality? After all, our premise is bogus to begin with: it stinks on ice to wreck a country and then hock their resources in order to rebuild what we’ve wrecked. To add insult to injury, we have American companies making a profit on the deal.

Question: can the Admin commit to such a financial arrangement without Congressional approval? Would Congress agree to attaching Count Iraqula to our fiscal jugular for the foreseeable future?

77

500 points of light?

78

Will CentCom do ?

79

From the CentCom link provided by squink:

It is like a bad joke. Yeah, sorry we bombed your home and killed your family. Here, have a lightbulb and a ceiling fan.

80

Translation
khayâlî = ‘imaginary’