I really am through talking about Iraq; at least for the foreseeable future. But I want to point you to this interesting post about the ‘not so hidden agenda’ in Iraq by Edward Hughes. He quoted from a fascinating document (In MSWord) that Barry Ritholtz wrote for his clients BEFORE the Iraq war started. Barry incidentally has a cool economics /market weblog that is definitely worth checking out.
Edward also speculated about the Iraq war in a post two days back in which he quoted Elliot Otti. Otti articulated much better what I now feel about the subject.
The vision of Iraq as a shining beacon of democracy and prosperity in the Middle East is likely to remain just that, an illusion. I think Juan Cole nailed it when he said that the best scenario that can be reasonably hoped for is if Iraq turns out similar to the way India is now: corrupt, inefficient, flawed, but reasonably democratic, reasonably multicultural, and reasonably peaceful.
This is the best case scenario, and it’s going to take between half a trillion to a trillion dollars to achieve it, an amount that the US taxpayer is largely going to have to bankroll alone. Given that this was not a deal they signed up knowingly for, unlike the West Germans, how much will they collectively stomach? How deep will they reach into their wallets before they say “Enough is enough”, and vote in a new administration on a platform of withdrawal from Iraq? And what happens to Iraq in such a case? (My guess: look at Iran).
It’s easy to dismiss such concerns …. Unfortunately, liberation does not always bring a better future with it. Forty years after liberation from the British, oil-rich Nigeria has suffered a terrible civil war, numerous lesser insurgencies, decades of brutal military dictatorships, a few years of corrupt civilian governments, and the end result is that, sad as it may be, the standard of living of the average Nigerian is now lower than it was at independence. The collapse of the Soviet Union led not to prosperity in Russia, but the exchange of crony socialism for the worst kind of crony capitalism, and a drastic decline in living standards for Russians not fortunate enough to be part of the incrowd when the looting of State-held institutions commenced under Yeltsin.
I think there may be some light at the end of the tunnel. The shocking death yesterday of the UN envoy in Iraq demonstrates that Iraq is in danger of becoming a magnet for all sorts of loonies. It is actually in the interest of the international community now to clean up the mess that US is creating in Iraq. I suspect that the other western countries may now figure out some face saving way of entering the fray in Iraq. That may not make Iraq a ‘shining beacon of democracy’, but anything would be better than this.