How the next president can get us out of Iraq

Imagine a phone call on the afternoon of January 20, 2009, from the U.S. president to the leaders of the Iraqi government.

"You have six months to privatize all state-owned enterprises, starting with oil, or we're pulling our troops out and the next time you see us, if you're alive that long, you won't be much longer."

How will this pulpy dialogue solve the problem of Iraq?

Take a close look at the debate over the Iraqi constitution. "The main obstacle was the argument over federalism, which the formerly dominant Sunni Arabs fear could lead to Kurdish and Shiite Muslim regions splitting away from Iraq," the Associated Press reported late Sunday, "there also was no agreement on 17 other issues, including the distribution of oil wealth."

Oil wealth. The people who control the Iraqi government control the oil wealth.

It's not like that in the United States. In the United States, the people who control the oil wealth control the government.

Why is this better?

Look at Mexico. Mexico's Pemex oil company is government-owned. Mexico's oil wealth is controlled by the government. Even with prices far above fifty dollars a barrel, the country remains an impoverished basket case with a corrupt government. Instead of prospering in a booming economy at home, the industrious and motivated people of Mexico are mowing your lawn and remodeling your house.

Suppose the oil wealth in the United States was owned by the government. If the government controlled that much money, the dead-close 2000 election would have led to riots and bloodshed. Instead, the only people who were ready to take to the streets in protest were the ones who would have had jobs in the Gore administration.

Okay, that's an exaggeration. A lot of people were angry about the 2000 election. But if you look closely, you'll see that the angriest ones were deprived by the Republican victory of some kind of government money, whether improved wages for unionized government workers (including teachers) or lucrative consulting contracts for national health care proposals.

The more money the government controls, the more violence there will be in the fight over power and the greater is the opportunity for corruption.

Why is the U.S. system better? What about the argument that the government just serves corporate interests at the expense of the greater good of the American public?

The answer can be found far back in the works of William Blackstone, the 18th-century English legal scholar who was a powerful influence on the framers of the U.S. Constitution.

Blackstone said the fundamental rights of Englishmen were the right to life, the right to move freely from place to place, and the right to own and enjoy property. That's what the Constitution guarantees. Its purpose is to protect your life, liberty and property from being taken from you by arbitrary government power. That's the true foundation of a free country. Freedom means you have the right to enjoy your life and the fruits of your own efforts. The Constitution makes it extraordinarily difficult for the government to enact national health care and other social spending programs because somebody has to pay for those things and the framers were fundamentally committed to protecting your property from being taken for somebody else's benefit.

Maybe this is better illustrated by an old joke. A communist is speaking to a crowd of people about justice and fairness and the glory of the coming revolution.

"If a man has two houses," the communist shouts at the crowd, "should he not give one of those houses to a man who is homeless and forced to sleep in the cold street?"

"Yes!!! Yes!!" the crowd shouts back at him, cheering wildly.

"And if a man has two automobiles," the communist goes on, "should he not give one of them to a man who must walk until his shoes are worn out and his feet bleed?"

"YES!! YES!!" the crowd roars.

"And if a man has two shirts," the communist thunders, "should he not give one to a man who is clad in rags?"

The crowd is silent.

The communist taps on the microphone to see if it's working.

"If a man has two shirts," he thunders again, "should he not give one to a man who is naked?"

Silence.

Flustered, the communist holds out his arms and says, "What? What's wrong?"

In the first row, an elderly man raises his hand.

"Yes," says the communist impatiently, "what is it?"

"I've got two shirts," the man answers.



Copyright 2005


Read more about it, with source notes, in "A Plan to Get Out of Iraq: Blackstone's Fundamental Rights and the Power of Property".

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