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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (119)	11/13/2004 3:37:16 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 71588

Liquid Freedom Posted on 11.11.2004 by Lenny Glynn in International Affairs The Prussian theorist Carl Von Clausewitz famously defined war as “politics by other means.” That formula applies even more crucially to insurgencies than it does to conventional campaigns. People, not territory, form the center of gravity in such wars. And the key to victory lies not just in winning “hearts and minds” but in driving as powerful a wedge as possible between the insurgents and the people they claim to be fighting for — and whose support they need to win. Given the centrality of politics to guerilla war, the most distressing aspect of the struggle in Iraq today is the near absence of any serious political strategy, other than elections themselves. Perhaps it’s time for President Bush to send Karl Rove to Baghdad. Because there is, in fact, a war-winning weapon close to hand that the Allawi government could use — with support from allies and from both Democrats and Republicans. This weapon could, at a stroke, put flesh on the bones of formal democracy, change the dynamic of the insurgency, begin to win the confidence of the Iraqi people and create a powerful, growing force for stability, national unity and economic development. The weapon, of course, is oil — and the huge flows of cash it generates. The way to deploy it is straightforward. Iraq’s new government should simply announce that as of a date certain, it will establish a new national investment fund — call it The Iraqi People’s Freedom Trust — which will be credited with a major share of all future Iraqi oil earnings. A popular real world model might be the Alaska Permanent Fund, which grants a share of that state’s oil revenues to every citizen. Revenues directed to Iraq’s Freedom Trust could be invested in Iraqi government bonds, keeping a small cash reserve to provide for cash withdrawals from the Trust by individual Iraqis. All 27 million Iraqis — men, women and children — would be eligible for an equal, personal account in the Freedom Trust simply by proving Iraqi birth and pledging their allegiance to the government. With assistance from coalition allies, registration for ownership shares in the trust could go hand in hand with registering citizens for the upcoming national elections. Any adult citizen of Iraq would then be free, at any time, to ask for a calculation of their account’s value and withdraw up to their full balance — no questions asked. The immediate effect would be electric. But the Trust’s real power would compound over time. For the first time in the history of Iraq, indeed of oil nations generally, the new government would be offering each and every citizen a real, guaranteed ownership share in an asset that has been long since nationalized and regarded as a public patrimony. Establishment of the Freedom Trust would dispel the fantasy that this war was waged by the U.S. to somehow steal Iraqi oil. The Freedom Trust would instantly offer a stark contrast with the Saddam regime’s practice of stealing and wasting oil revenues on weapons, palaces and luxuries for a tiny elite of privileged cronies. Revenues credited to the Freedom Trust would not go directly to the public as cash payouts. They would, instead, be invested, initially at least, in new Iraq government bonds. This would give Iraq’s new bond market a huge jump start — actively leveraging the central government’s financial power. But legal ownership of shares in the Trust should be vested in each individual Iraqi, not the patriarch, the husband, tribe, clan, or regional power-broker. The goal would be to “personalize” oil revenues streams, empower women, give democracy a material base — and give all Iraqis a stake in the survival and stability of their new democracy. more there: newpartisan.com Thanks Joseph Halaada for finding this.