WSJ: Iraqi Crossroads - How about a constitutional right to share in the oil wealth?

Wall Street Journal ^ | August 17, 2005 | Editorial

[OESY]

...The dilemma is that most of Iraq's oil wealth is found in areas claimed by Shiites and Kurds. And some leading Iraqi ethnic politicians have been asserting a right to keep all the oil revenue in their regions. Kurdish chieftain Massoud Barzani wants to control the northern city of Kirkuk, while Shiite politician Abdul Aziz al-Hakim is pushing for nearly complete control of the oil fields in the south.

Thus strong regional governments, if allowed too much control over oil, risk leaving an Iraq with a rump Sunni province, and could create the perception of a legitimate grievance where none now exists for the Sunni-dominated insurgency. Sunni delegates have threatened to walk out of the charter talks over the issue.

The best suggestion we've heard for cutting this Gordian knot comes from the much-maligned Ahmed Chalabi, who is now Iraq's deputy prime minister with special responsibilities for oil and infrastructure and has emerged as a major constitutional broker. He has bucked some of his Shiite and Kurdish allies by insisting that ultimate control of Iraq's natural wealth must remain in the hands of the central government, while also suggesting constitutional language that the wealth be owned by all Iraqis in "equal measure." ...[O]il would be managed by the central government in the interests of all Iraqis wherever they live, but not owned by it.

Mr. Chalabi hopes... the "equal measure" concept will pave the way in practice for the creation of an oil trust, under which Iraqis would from birth have accounts established in their name. Iraqis would receive their full and equal share of oil revenue and the government would have to vote to tax it away. Mr. Chalabi sees this as a way of breaking the "oil curse" that has turned so many oil-rich nations into corrupt tyrannies....

[coconutt2000]

Kind of like two arguments from our own past...

The assumption of the colonial debts, and the establishment of the central bank.

[aculeus]

If he means paying all citizens dividends from oil income (similar to the system used in Alaska) the suggestion is absolutely brilliant.

If every Iraqi adult received cash from oil production just imagine their reaction to any faction that favored bombing oil facilities.

[CBart95]

AH! THE PUZZEL PIECE!

oil

A shaky (or better "sheiky") new government without binding federal power and no compelling incentives to participate.
For now,the iron fist stays in the velvet glove.
Withdrawl? Not anytime soon.

[Alberta's Child]

He has bucked some of his Shiite and Kurdish allies by insisting that ultimate control of Iraq's natural wealth must remain in the hands of the central government, while also suggesting constitutional language that the wealth be owned by all Iraqis in "equal measure." ...[O]il would be managed by the central government in the interests of all Iraqis wherever they live, but not owned by it.

This is Chalabi's desperate attempt to make chicken soup out of chicken sh!t, for he knows that this idiotic exercise in "nation-building" is destined to fail unless he can figure out a way to basically bribe all the various factions in Iraq to ratify the new constitution.

[yoswif]

I'd prefer the Czech plan to the Alaska plan. Issue an equal amount of shares in Iraq Oil Inc to every Iraqi.

[wildbill]

Why not privatize the oil into a couple of competing companies and give each Iraqi citizen a one-time distribution of x shares of stock.

Every citizen and thier heirs would share in the profits. Wouldn't help finance the government, but they could establish a tax system for that. I suspect that every Iraqi would then be a little more careful about the way the government is run.

[usurper]

If they give equal shares of stock or equal dividends to all Iraqis it could lead to a population explosion.