Winning the war in Iraq

[plural]

budhaboy got me thinking about the subject, so here goes.

Crossposted to debate

The question I often wonder listening to much of the debate and/or discussion over the Iraq war/occupation is what exactly do people really want? From my point of view, We invaded Iraq, got rid of an ugly dictator, this is a good thing, even if one doesnt buy the whole WMD reasoning (of which even I have my doubts). Now those people who were against the war to begin with, are using the prison scandal, the guerrilla warfare and civilian death tolls to argue against leaving Iraq. Personally, I see a clear responsibility on our part to buckle down and complete the job, pacify the resistance, and set up a functioning democratic and free country. I think people overall seem to have an unrealistic expectation as to how long this will take and what it will cost both in lives (US & Iraqi) and in money. I expect this overall process to take about ten years, allowing for gradual troop withdrawls after the first five or six.

I also think people need to realize that this is an ugly job in an ugly part of the world, and to expect life there to resemble an american city in six months is ridiculous.

That said, Bush is without a doubt fucking up, of course it isnt like anyone is helping him either, so we all bear some complicity.

So I propose the Plural plan for Iraq, and I will seperate each stage into three parts, Military, Economic and Politcal:

Stage One: [Timeline - the next 6 months]
Military: Double the US military forces on the ground, if necessary take troops from places like Germany to bolster our troop strength
Economic: Institute a comprehensive social welfare and home/business rebuilding program to feed, clothe and help them get their homes and business operating normally again
Political: Create a constitution & civil and criminal codes of law

Stage Two: [Timeline - 6 to 18 months out]
Military: Complete pacification of all resistance, identify areas of guerilla activity, isolate them and summarily execute one in ten males of military age in those areas.
Economic: Reopen the Iraqi oil pipelines and start selling their oil to help pay for the rebuilding of Iraq, provide preferential consideration to American companies bidding for rebuilding projects.
Political: Train a judiciary, establish civil and criminal courts and give them jurisdiction over Iraqi citizens

Stage Three: [Timeline - 18 to 30 months out]
Military: Train Iraqi police and slowly hand over small areas of territory to their governance [under US military supervision]
Economic: Institute a micro loan program to help Iraqis start businesses and participate/profit from the rebuilding of Iraq
Political: Train civil administrators, mayors, councilmen, and the like, turn over civil administration of towns then cities in a reverse order of size

Stage Four: [Timeline - 30 to 42 months out]
Military: Train and Iraqi Military and slowly hand over small areas or territory for them to secure [under US military supervision]
Economic: Create Iraqi subsidiaries of the American companies operating Iraqis utilities, and oil fields to be run by Iraqis
Political: Establish a limited democratic process by which Mayors and city councilmen can be elected

Stage Five: [Timeline - 42 to 66 months out]
Military: Establish major military bases in strategic areas, to set the groundwork for an american withdrawal
Economic: Create an Iraqi stock market, spin off the American subsidaries creating a critical mass of publicly traded companies within Iraq, limit initial IPO purchases to Iraqi nationals.
Political: Create a national congress, expand the existing democratic process to elect representatives to that body, give them control over regional administration

Stage Six: [Timeline - 66 to 90 months out]
Military: Begin a staged withdrawal of ground forces, leaving only a stabilizing force in the above mentioned bases to support a democratically elected government.
Economic: Re-open the Iraqi market to free international trade
Political: Create an executive branch, expand the existing democratic process to elect a national leader, give them control over national, international and military affairs

Stage Seven: [Timeline 10 years from now]
Having given the political and economic structures two and a half years completely free of American intervention to stabilize, we should be able to withdraw the remaining US forces completely, leaving behind a stable, democratic and free Iraq.

Go us.

Would this work / what would you change?

Is it better than the current administrations plan?

Comments

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

WAY harder than you suggest. Sure you've replaced the ???? in my flip response with 'things', but they are things like:

Institute a comprehensive social welfare and home/business rebuilding program to feed, clothe and help them get their homes and business operating normally again

With the exception of Cuba, every time a massive social welfare program has started, it never really works... also, how do you get them off?

Reopen the Iraqi oil pipelines and start selling their oil to help pay for the rebuilding of Iraq, provide preferential consideration to American companies bidding for rebuilding projects.

How do you guard that pipeline? Killing 1 in 10 to put the fear of God into them? It's a good start, but what if even that steels their resolve? Sure the Romans got it to work, but they also DRAMATICALLY IMPROVED THE QUALITY OF LIFE with roads, acqaducts, rule of law... These things no one in those areas had ever seen before. Most Iraqis feel like they had those things pre 1991, and only from sanctions, and a two wars have they gotten to where they are now... Anything you could give them, they already had, but they (rightly or wrongly) believe we took from them... TOTALLY different mindset.

These ideas of 'creating Iraqi subsidiaries of American companies'... leave it up the corporate mindset to not make a banana republic?

Never going to happen.

History has shown that the only true path to the embracement of free market ideals for the people involved to have a stake. That means Iraqi ownership of companies, because you, me, and I'm sure more than a few Iraqis realize that the 'profit' that would flow back to a subsidiary would be miniscule, since they would have to have the overarching shareholder's stake in mind FIRST. What CEO would honestly propose the following plan:

1) invest billions in infrastructure to a build in iraq our business.
2) spin that company off with the fair value of the coporation going to the Iraqi people, leaving the equity you, dear shareholders put out in the hands of Iraqis.

I mean, how long would the shareholders have to wait to get their money back? Could imagine the balance sheets? Would the company's investment be a loan, or a stake? If it's a stake, where does the 'other' value come from (that is, you release shares in subsidiary on the Iraqi stock market... you get Iraqi dinars for those shares... who would trade some percentage of a fact of billions in US dollar investments for iraqi dinars?

I think it looks good on paper, but the details would be MAJOR stumbling blocks.

For the record, I was against this war before it started. I thought the WMD was absurd for the following reason: A stalinist economy is the MOST inefficient mode of transfering resources. For Saddam to have reconstituted his program from what it was KNOWN to have been in '98 (all plants destroyed, but knowedge and plans, and possibly some VERY old and expired WMD) under this form of resouce allocation AND rebuild the infrastructure from GWI, AND reconstitute enough WMD to be a threat... never going to happen in Saddam's lifetime.

I do however think that we need to do something now that we are there, but I have no solutions that could possibly work under our current mindset...

[lamotocyclette.livejournal.com]

"isolate them and summarily execute one in ten males of military age in those areas."

Urgh! Sorry, but all that is going to do is piss more people, both within and outside of Iraq, off (including me).

You ask if this would work? What would be in it for the US? If nothing, it would never work with our current system of govt.

[plural.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but hopefully it wouldnt have to be done more than once or twice to get the message across, of course, as another person suggested we could do as we did in post war germany when an town was a source of resistance and surround it, close it off, and shell it to dust. Either isnt pretty but makes it abundantly clear the consequences for violent resistance.

While either is equally appalling to me, I also recognize that until we can demonstrate day to day security of person and property in Iraq, the common man will not feel the benefits of the other programs we are putting/trying to put in place to improve the situation, so in a way taking off the gloves is very necessary.

as for what is in it for the US, several things, one pumping Iraqi oil will reduce the cost of oil giving us cheaper gas again, next american companies and thereby the economy will benefit from first from the contracts to rebuild Iraq, then from spinning off their Iraqi subsidiaries. It would mean a lot of money flowing into the american economy for a fairly extended period of time. not to mention finally being a foreign policy in alignment with our more vaunted ideals.

[lamotocyclette.livejournal.com]

I maintain my opinion that killing a large number of Iraqis, especially citizens, will do nothing but further the rest of the world's opinions that we are occupying, not liberating Iraq. Not good.

Our gas is not expensive right now due to a lack of supply of oil. Our gas is expensive right now due to refineries, not supply of crude. We have a huge amount of crude in reserve as it is.

[resilience.livejournal.com]

I'll second you on the fuel price issue, and fuel is my business.

We should see prices go down at least by November... what with it being an election year and all.

[plural.livejournal.com]

I can see your point, perhaps I am simply unimaginative but I see few "nice" ways to pacify the resistance in a timely manner to allow us to move on to the serious and lengthy work of building a democracy. I will allow that there very well maybe be an alternate solution.

Actually it is a combination of the two, the refinery problem is more geographically specific, i.e. much more of a problem on the west coast than the east coast. However, the price of crude has gone up significantly as well, affecting the price of every type of fuel. If it were simply a refinery problem, then things like jet fuel which use a different refinery chain would not be experiencing similar hikes.

As for our huge reserve of crude, it is because for the most part we only use a certain amount of american crude to suppliment imported oil and help keep prices lower, the idea being to reserve as much of our oil resources as possible, instead purchasing middleeastern oil so as to use their reserves up first.

[plural.livejournal.com]

hmm, I would be interested in your thoughts on my response to her comment (below). While I am not in the fuel business, I have tried to educate myself on the overall picture over the last few years, and would appreciate it if you could correct any incorrect notions I may have expressed.

[plural.livejournal.com]

Oh come on the New Deal in america worked incredibly well, we could do something similar there.

secondly, that is exactly my point with regard to decimation, to do as the romans, put the fear of god into them while dramatically improving their lives. While they may have had many of those things before, they havent for some time and especially if you show them that even better things are coming, they will buy into it.

No, my idea with regard to creating Iraqi subsidiaries was to jumpstart the creation of a critical mass of large companies equipped to manage the oil fields, infrastructure and provide utilities. First we start by awarding contracts to US companies to do it, then we have them create Iraqi subsidiaries to manage them, then spin those subsidiaries off while creating a stock market to put shareholder ownership into the hand of the Iraqi people. The US companys profit during each step of the way so it would be win/win for everyone. I could even see "rewarding them" with a minority stake in the companies so that they could continue to profit from them into the indefinite future.

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

Oh come on the New Deal in america worked incredibly well, we could do something similar there.

The new deal worked because the people weren't too far off working in a capitalist society, and really needed relief.

Iraq was a stalinist socialist state. Perpetuating that, then asking them to start is going to be VERY difficult.


While they may have had many of those things before, they havent for some time and especially if you show them that even better things are coming, they will buy into it.

ummm, how are you going to make their lives better? Only Americans give a shit about getting new cars every year, more and 'better' mall restarants... most people on the planet just want to live thier lives, and raise kids. They could do that under Saddam, and do it WELL before '91. YEARS of propaganda has lead them to believe that we are responsible for their misery. The BEST we could hope for is to give them what they had (full grocery stores, constant electrical power, petrol, and cars that work)...Anything more than that would necessitate motivation on their part to want it...

The Romans provided their locals with things they REALLY needed (good roads to market their wares, clean water running directly to their houses, metal).

First we start by awarding contracts to US companies to do it
good idea.

Free money to corporations to do the right thing. Who oversee this? Free markets can't be created, their needs to be a demand that has to be satiated in a way that involves competition. If you 'plant' a supply that isn't market driven, you have problems, if you satisfy a need without allowing adequate competion that is based on capital risk, you will have a different set of problems.

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

Gas is expensive because of both reasons, actually.

[whatdot.livejournal.com]

Relative to world prices, your gas is not expensive right now... nor ever, as it's highly subsidised.

Ours is currently US$2.80/gallon (assuming my currency & imperial conversions were correct)... what's yours?

[lamotocyclette.livejournal.com]

You're arguing with the wrong person. I totally agree. The "our gas is expensive" part is relative to what our prices have been, and in response to plural's own comments.

[lamotocyclette.livejournal.com]

We have 69 million barrels in reserve though!

[resilience.livejournal.com]

When I'm back in town, I'll ask my boss for a little more information on this. He's got 15 years of experience in the industry, while I have about 2. But I can give you a little bit of information.

Regarding refineries, you'll see that problems with them will cause fuel prices to rise. Last year, when the power outages hit the northeast, a few refineries were shut down. We had plenty of crude in our reserves, but we weren't producing enough fuel to satisfy the demand. This caused prices to rise. Once the refineries were up and running again, and we caught up with the demand, prices leveled off.

I'll see about getting more info on Tuesday (when I get back in town)... if you'd like. :)

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

And buying more every day!

Yes, it's true... part of the shortage that is spiking oil prices is due to dubya' insistence to continue stockpiling the stratigic oil reserves.

As for 69M barrels, according to this that's enough to last us about 3.5 days...

that site, the energy information administration will fill you in on any arcane statistic you could possibly want to know about any form of energy.

I rarely hear of it in the news, and only know of its existence because I interviewed with them prior to my coming to work for the BLS.

I particularly like the kid's page hosted by the energy ant:





I don't even want to know how much the feds paid to have some artist come up with that.

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

I paid $2.13/gal for premium yesterday.

I'm not sure why you say it's subsidized... I thought the issue of price disparity was due to taxes.

[lamotocyclette.livejournal.com]

Ah, sorry, I mistyped. Should be billion, not million.

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

heh.

Billion?

That would suggest we are keeping 3000 days worth of oil in reserve? nearly 10 years?

I don't think so.

Abraham and other members of the Bush administration have said the reserve should be filled to its capacity of 700 million barrels and only be used for supply disruptions, not to lower prices. The reserve currently holds about 650 million barrels of oil, or 93 percent of capacity.

It's still an obscene amount of oil though, given if we were ever in a position to have to tap it, we'd likely reduce the consumption to something far less than 19M Barrels/day, extending it far beyond the 30(ish) day level they are shooting for.

[plural.livejournal.com]

Its depends where you are at but california broke US$3 a gallon recently

[plural.livejournal.com]

It isnt subsidized in the conventional sense, it is just that we have a domestic oil supply to help cut down the cost of importing crude. So our average cost per barrel is to the refineries is lower than it would be in say holland or japan which lack significantly large crude deposits. We only import around half of our oil usuage compared to many countries which import nearly all of there oil consumption

but yes our taxes tend to lower as well.

[plural.livejournal.com]

what I was suggesting in stage one was more of a short term jumpstart to get people functioning again, for the long term, I was envisioning something more like the new deal which took advantage of the economic chaos of the depression to make huge infrastructure improvements to the US.

Actually I would contend that while most of the world is content to live without those things, by reason of feasability, they desire them to an equal extent. Look at any first world country and you will see similar (although not as extensive) consumerism, and for that matter if you at other oil rich countries, like saudi arabia or kuwait, you will see a similar consumerist perspective by those who can afford it.

Our first step is to get their everyday lives working again, then to ensure they see that they can participate in the recovery/rebuilding and improve their lives to a degree which they couldnt under Saddam. If people see they have the ability through work to improve their security and comfort, it will be a dramatic shift from how things were before under Saddam, and provide a similar motivation to the individual as the roman programs did.

It isnt free money to corporations, it is paying them to do needed reconstruction and operation. Rebuilding the oil pipeline so that oil can be sold is essential, as it allows a market driven commodity to reach the market. Secondly, the essential industries under Saddam were nationalized so by awarding contracts to American companies to manage those industries and fulfill the demands of the market you are simply helping to organize/manage capitalism rather than subvert it entirely.

The advantage Iraq has over say Somalia is that with their oil reserves it becomes incredibly profitable to reconstruct their economy, I am merely proposing that instead of letting it go willy-nilly we stage and organize it in a way that will let both American and Iraqi companies profit while in the end leaving the majority interest of their national industry in the hands of the Iraqi people.

[lamotocyclette.livejournal.com]

That's just the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

[lamotocyclette.livejournal.com]

Urgh, can't find my original source for that number again. Will have to see if I can find it on my computer at home.
Regardless, I still feel our refinery problem is having a far greater impact on gas prices right now that what we may or may not be importing from Iraq.

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

Ever since you made your comment, I've been passively trying to remember where I heard the breakdown of the pumpprice of a gallon of gas.

As I write this, I think it was on some cspanradio thing I was listening to...

The basic idea was the two largest parts of the price were Cost of Oil, and Taxes.

Refining, while third, wasn't the prime mover in the cost, as the price of oil has lept something like 30% in the last two months (see that EIA link for actual numbers).

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

As for Iraq... The biggest problem with Iraq not producing even to pre war levels, is the Saudis have had to ramp up production to cover the shortfall, leaving them utterly unable to quickly compensate for demand spikes...

This is (IMHO) the primary rationale for some critics to call for stopping the fuelling of the SPR, and even start tapping it (with 670MBarrels, we could easily afford to drop a couple million barrels on the market until the production in Iraq gets up to speed... I mean they keep saying it should only be a week or so for that to happen, right?

:)

[plural.livejournal.com]

Actually with regards to localized areas refining plays a much larger role.

The west coast of the US has been suffering inflated oil prices off and on for some time due to an lack of refining capabilities there.

While much of the problem out there has been or is being resolved, there was a serious of fires and environmental violations which shut down a significant amount of the refining capacity and raised gas prices.

I recall when I last lived in seattle, prices for gas on the west coast were significantly higher than the midwest and east coast specifically because of the refinery problem.

[lamotocyclette.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's different on the west coast.
Here, it really does seem to be a refinery issue.

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

coming from OH (the third largest producer of Crude int the country) most of the people I talked to in the oil bidness there say they don't even start producing oil until it breaks the $25 barrier, because it doesn't pay to perform the OSHA and other regulatory hurdles necessary to produce...

My point is, as prices rise, so does our proportion of domestic production...

Not that this in anyway affects your point, of course.

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

You know, now that you mention fire, I seem to remember a fire out west in a refinery a few weeks ago...

I could easily believe it's the case.

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

I stand corrected.