Changing the locks: What we did on their summer vacation

The Iraqi parliament is thinking about taking two months off for the summer.

"If they go off on vacation for two months while our troops fight that would be the outrage of outrages," said Connecticut Republican Rep. Chris Shays.

"That is not acceptable," said Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner.

"I certainly hope they're not going to take any sort of recess when the question is whether they're going to make any progress," said Nebraska Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson.

The "progress" relates to a pending hydrocarbons law, which would divide Iraq's oil revenue between the rival ethnic and religious groups in a manner that everyone considers fair. Washington lawmakers think this will help to end the violence in Iraq.

They're wrong about that. As long as group leaders are empowered to hand out the country's wealth, Iraqis will be forced to demonstrate their loyalty to those leaders, even at the cost of their lives.

If you're an Iraqi, you don't have an independent path to success in the private sector. There effectively is no private sector in Iraq. The government owns the oil and the oil industry, as well as all the other major industries in the country including agriculture. If you want a job in Iraq, you have to stay on the good side of the people who control the government, or your group's share of it.

If the Americans muscle the Iraqi government into handing "fair shares" of oil revenue to the leaders of ethnic and religious groups, individual Iraqis will not have American-style property rights to that money. Instead, they will be supplicants to their group's leader. This is not a system that will reward bold innovation and courageous risk-taking. This is a system that will reward blind loyalty, including the violent defense of a leader's position of power.

It's embarrassing that American government officials do not know this, but an economy based on collectivism is incompatible with political freedom.

The indispensable foundation of freedom is private property.

As long as the Iraqi government owns all the property and hands it out to people who will hand it out to people, the Iraqis have to survive by watching their words and watching their backs. They may sit still for lectures from American leaders on the importance of freedom, but they are humoring us. They are not free, and they know it even if we don't.

So here is a modest proposal from America Wants To Know.

As soon as the Iraqi parliament leaves for its two-month summer vacation, let's change the locks on the Green Zone, take over the government again, and get it right this time.

It is absolutely essential to privatize the state-owned enterprises in Iraq. All of them. Immediately.

The citizens of Iraq, even the ones living outside the country, should have the opportunity to buy shares of the new companies. Employees of the government, like teachers and soldiers, should receive shares as part of their compensation package.

Secure, private financial services must be made available to individual Iraqis. No one who lives in Iraq should be forced to rely on a cleric or a mobster for handouts of cash on payday. Surely someone in New York knows how to set this up quickly. Surely someone in the American government has a phone number for the chairman of Citibank.

Of course, if we do this, there will be endless criticism. There will be dark muttering about our intentions. There will be open accusations that we are only trying to enrich U.S. oil companies at the world's expense.

So what else is new.

America Wants To Know would like American policy-makers to consider whether privatization would, if it were achieved, solve the problems of violence and instability in Iraq. Because if they think it would, they should have the courage to endure the world's criticism and stand up for real freedom for the Iraqi people.

Otherwise, they should bring U.S. troops home immediately. Americans should not be fighting for the Iraqi government's right to spend its oil money on a two-month vacation.


Copyright 2007

Editor's note: You might be interested in the 2006 article, "The Motive for War: How to End the Violence in Iraq" and the 2004 article, "A Plan to Get Out of Iraq: Blackstone's Fundamental Rights and the Power of Property," at www.SusanShelley.com.

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