| The upgrading of Iraq to U.S. standards has begun. The earnest Americans of the reconstruction corps are flooding into Baghdad, hosting poorly attended governance conferences, telling Iraqi police to re-apply for their jobs and announcing wage cuts for those civil servants allowed to return to work.
These champions of democracy may succeed in establishing a fragile state that survives long enough for Iraqi oil to pay for the war. More likely, they will leave Iraq with only a first-hand account of an imploding Arab nation. Neither possibility will lead to the remaking of the Middle East in accordance with U.S. plans because the Bushites are sending the wrong people do the wrong job. The U.S. should be sending a whole different cadre of its best and brightest – the thousands of disgraced or recently unemployed managers and CEOs that used to make the U.S. economy the envy of the world.
Iraq does not need government by the people – it needs the American business model. The U.S. does not need another fledgling democracy – it needs a place to dump its unemployed captains of business and to establish a mini-me of American capitalism.
A legion of merger-crazy free-marketeers should be sent to Iraq to reconstruct everything from its television networks to its military. Once the Iraqis taste the high-quality customer services and low market prices of a pure open market, they will turn their backs on Islamic fundamentalism, dictators and the great evil of state-controlled institutions.
Instead, they will live in a free-market utopia where local business and multi-nationals work together to provide every product and service imaginable – paved roads, looter-proof museums, modern hospitals, well-trained soldiers who work as express couriers in peace-time, old-age pensions and uninterrupted water and electricity distribution.
Neither a leap of faith nor thousands of soldiers will be necessary. Creating this oasis will be easier than invading the country. First, president Bush should promise to pardon a few hundred corporate executives if they do five years of business service in Iraq. A couple of company jets loaded with former CEOs along with a military transport full of navy-blue suits, white shirts and red ties landing at the Baghdad International Airport is all that is needed to establish the first beachhead of Operation Iraqi Enterprise.
The former CEO of WorldCom, Bernard Ebbers, should kick it all off by holding a press conference on Iraqi television. Ebbers can explain that a shift in Iraq Inc.’s strategic objectives has made the previous government redundant, and active downsizing will continue until the country has been restructured to maximize shareholder returns.
In the meantime, every Iraqi should be issued one share in Iraq Inc. They can pay for the share through garnished wages or by taking out large personal loans to buy U.S. consumer products. Any Iraqi who plays an important role in creating a free market will be showered with stock options to encourage loyalty and excellence in customer service.
Elections should be replaced with shareholder meetings, and the Iraq Inc. board would run what few governing functions are required, such as picking national emblems, greeting foreign diplomats and handing out awards to successful athletes and business people. Taxes will not exist, of course, so these few services will be paid for by user fees.
Everything else would be provided by the private sector, where U.S. and Iraqi companies would compete on a level playing field. Competition would end corruption and cause the Iraqi standard of living to spiral upwards. Iraq would be the place to live and prosper in the Arab world.
With no banking system and little access to capital, the Iraqi companies would struggle at first to compete with their U.S. brothers. Fortunately, with help of those former CEOs and their savvy business ways, it should take only a few decades for Iraqi business to overcome the challenge (and become stronger for it). After all, the sky is not a limit for an unregulated economy with no taxes. |
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