Idea of the Day: Steve Forbes on Saving Iraq (Faster)

An absolutely brilliant idea that I hope the administration and Centcom would seriously consider (link appears to be free for now):

President Bush, his secretary of state and his secretary of Defense have all recently made it resoundingly clear that the Administration has no intention of giving up on our mission to democratize Iraq. The Administration, however, should introduce changes that would make this goal more realizable.

Oil. For starters, U.S. officials should urgently push the Iraqi government to enact something similar to the so-called Alaska model for Iraq’s oil riches. Control of the country’s oil–only Saudi Arabia and Iran have reserves greater than Iraq’s–is an enormous bone of contention between the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites. Instituting an Alaska model would immediately ameliorate lethal tensions over control.

About a quarter of Alaska’s oil and gas royalties goes into an entity called the Permanent Fund, the assets of which are managed by professionals who invest it in stocks, bonds and the like. About half the revenue stream is distributed to the state’s citizens each year; the other half is reinvested. Last year each man, woman and child residing in Alaska received a check for $845.76 from the fund.

Imagine what such a fund would do for Iraq, where a typical worker is lucky to earn $150 a month. With the exception of the fanatics and remnants of Saddam Hussein’s murderous security services, every Iraqi citizen would have a stake in ensuring that oil production increases. Attacks on the oil infrastructure would drop dramatically. People wouldn’t hesitate to provide the Iraqi army and coalition forces with intelligence. Currently oil money is seen as going to corrupt officials, but if a significant part of it flowed directly to citizens, the insurrectionists would suffer a huge setback.

While on the subject, this would be a great idea for states rich in shale-oil deposits like Colorado and Utah to put into place NOW, before significant exploration begins, and before the inevitable “don’t touch a darn thing” objections from the enviros get any louder.