The Way out of Iraq -- Money

From the start of the Iraq war, I was plagued by the sense that there was simply no peaceful solution through which the U.S. could exit. It now seems that combat deaths are setting new lows and although there hasn't been much tangible political progress, the rhetoric doesn't seem to be all that strident.

I have never claimed to understand the Iraqi mind, so I never tried to say for sure how far they would go with their antipathies towards one another. Pretty clearly, the Kurds despised the Arabs, probably with more fervor and more justification than the Sunni/Shiite split within the Arab community. I have felt all along that the Kurds would not give up their share of oil, about 40% compared with their 20% representation in the population. This meant that the remaining 60% of oil revenue would perforce be divided among the 80% of Iraqis who are Arabs. I was pretty sure that the economic conflict would form on sectarian lines and would be bloody.

But the economic conflict may be unnecessary. At $30/barrel, there wasn't enough cash there to make everyone happy. Even the $30 wasn't clear profit, as the Iraqi infrastructure would have absorbed a lot of it. But $120 is a whole new ballgame. Just on the back of an envelope, it looks like Iraq would have enough money to bring all the Shiites into the middle class and let the formerly prosperous Sunni administrative and professional class be prosperous again. Subtract the economic imperative, and there may not be enough enmity left for a civil war.

Arabs are historically very good at math (think "Al Gebra") and the thought may have occurred to them as well. They need to stop killing one another in order to get rid of the occupation and cash in. There is so much cash available that the corrupt political class (essentially a redundant phrase) can become spectacularly rich without depriving their less privileged supporters.

I'm going to now predict that a combination of fatigue and greed will lead to a modus vivendi in Iraq among the factions. One of the conditions will be that Americans leave. The super embassy in Baghdad may become an issue. But the violence will decline and we'll eventually stop spending our resources there, so we can devote them to the consequences of food riots elsewhere.