An observation: At first I just thought it was nice to see an actual opinion in the Washington Post Op-Ed that is not simply another polysyllabic pitch for MORE government spending on someone's pet cause. Then, alas, I see it is really, at the end, a pitch for reallocation of said funds, of moving the construction contract funds to the military directly, where not incidentally Rubin's AEI has more allies and gives more faith and credit.

Sorry to lapse into intra-US political issues, but they do matter here in this kind of decisionmaking.

Shifting work to Iraqis would help the economy much more than the policy up 'til now of parachuting MNCs with dodgy credentials/links/just generally bad PR (Bechtel on cost+ in volatile country = bull on speed in china shop) in to waste money on cowboys in white SUVs who thought they'd make a buck or two after they got kicked out of the Marines for a lack of neurons.

The big worry, to my mind, is the corruption issue - the sheer amount of money involved does need to be administered properly, just to ensure that it doesn't turn into a form of economic rent and help revitalise a state capture dynamic in the country. Iraq's already got the odds stacked against its democracy, being a rentier state: we don't really want to help people build up their patronage networks any further by making economic aid into just another source of rent.

So long as the big capex projects were balanced by lots of microcredit initiatives to boost local economies and help encourage low-level entrepreneurialism, I'm all in favour of getting foreign contractors out.

Mathew, you're right, I rather glossed over the put money in DoD hands via officers angle. That is not likely to be workable on the grand scale, if only because American military officers are not likely, in the aggregate, to know who is who, so to speak.

Yin....
Corruption. Yes.

Well, I have largely written off the idea of Iraqi democracy, if it survives that is fine, but the history of petrol-rentier states even without civil war is most unedifying in this area. I'd be satisfied with stability and missing out on the failed state fun.

Pumping vast sums through the Iraqi ministries is likely to create huge rents - the problem becomes what other choices are there?

Micro initiatives to boost local economies and encourage low level entreprenurialism is a post conflict or at least largely stable situ stage.

Prioritisation suggests to me getting the economy functioning near normally in the non-free fire zones has to be prime priority -and best done by Iraqis, the frilly local stuff that the US has been trying since day one has to wait. The foreign contractors are not value add right now, quite the contrary.

By the way, I note my slimey self saw an internal document from Bearing Point directing new business to not pursue further Iraq contracts. If cobidders wish to do so, BP will passively help, but its writing off such efforts now.

The author has a good point about the private security contractors; I doubt they are payed to consider the long-term ramifications of their behaviour. The US military is at least supposed to consider these things. Or at least the government in charge of it.

A side note to your side note, Lounsbury: I don't think looking to other Middle Eastern states for a likelihood of democracy succeeding is a fair assessment. Whatever the case may be in Iraq, most other states in the area didn't even try to become democracies, they were set up as authoritarian states from the beginning.

US Mil does not seem to be a doing a terribly brilliant job of looking to long term ramifications either. Something I began pointing out three years ago before it became 'fashionable.' See this Australian report which while containing a whiff of the self serving matches similar things I read in regards to Somalia, etc. - and indeed heard from my more sophisticated friends in military intelligence from the US military.

Myopic "force protection" rules that end up breeding more resentment and long term violence.

That aside, I think you need to learn some bloody MENA history before making stupid observations. Syria, Egypt, Lebanon - to cite merely three off the top of my head - all began with reasonable trappings of democracy on decolonisation. They did indeed try, and in some respects under better economic circumstances - although not ideological necessarily. Even Iraq might be so characterised in a limited since in the 1950s.

Looking to other MENA states for the liklihood of this "experiment" working out under these circumstances is one of the wisest things one can do.

a) You were referring primarily to "petrol-rentier states". b) Think of all the exceptions you like. I welcome them, but not your foul attitude.

My tuppence. When I brought up the rentier states issue, I was also thinking of the African and Latin American experiences. Successfulo democratic rentier states are few and far between - off the top of my head, I can only think really of Norway, where they had the institutional maturity to devise a financial structure for the oil rents that would prevent the state capture dynamic.

I come here primarily for the foul attitude. Greetings from sunny Hama, by the way.

I'm not a sunny person. What can I say?

Hamma. Hope you brought you 105 mm.

Regardless, in re the overall issue, there are no models out there that suggest a bright and sunny future for Iraq. Like Yin, only Norway (perhaps GB to the extent its North Sea oil for a period was important relative to its economy).

Regardless, in re the Gulf state model, they may not be democracies but their populations one can expect are and will be leaving a whole fuck lot better than Iraqis in the foreseable future.

Botswana is a possible exception--but everyone mentions the unusual and remarkable nature of its founding leader as the primary reason as to how they managed ot pull it off.