Might as well Jump(start) Posted by Adam Blickstein

Michael highlights some of the more mendacious portions from McCain's Iraq speech this morning, but I wanted to highlight a small but significant statement he made:

Economic progress is essential if the security gains in Iraq are to be sustained. To move young men away from the attractions of well-funded extremists, we need a vibrant, growing Iraqi economy. The Iraqi government can jump-start this process by using a portion of its budget surplus to employ Iraqis in infrastructure projects and in restoring basic services.

You can look at this statement through various prisms (such as economic viability can only come after some sort of political and societal stasis is reached after the U.S. withdraws its forces), but I wanted to focus on the fallacy of McCain stating that Iraq's budget surplus should be used to jump start the economy. While it is true Iraq has a surplus probably in the billions, effectively spending that money will be nearly impossible. As an AP report on the surplus states:

But according to other U.S. officials, a major problem is that Iraq does not have the capacity to allocate the money without it being wasted or pocketed by corrupt officials.

Having excess money is great, but not having the government mechanisms to effectively spend the surplus cash (partially so high because the U.S. is paying billions for everything in Iraq) makes the reserve almost meaningless. Which is to say, the surplus will only matter, and will only jump-start the economy, after sustainable political solutions are found, as we know the Iraqi government is far from accomplishing. 

But the main problem with this paragraph from McCain isn't necessarily in highlighting the fallacy of the surplus, but its in the context.  He argues that the way to wean young men away from well funded extremists is by having a vibrant economy, but he then states that the way to jump-start the economy is by restoring basic services, presumably not only water and electricity, but construction and municipal projects.  The issue with this is that Iraqi's of all stripes are aligned to some sort of non-central government group because these supragovernmental organizations are more effective in providing the basic services to average Iraqi's than the central government is. Due to its own inefficiencies, the central government is essentially ceding the management of these basic services to the militias and regional  leaders.  Outside of Baghdad, for instance, sources of power have sprung up independent of the central government's purview. Elsewhere, basic services such as water, food and health have been by default outsourced to local militias and regional powers.  With four million Iraqis not having enough food, only 40 percent have reliable access to safe drinking water and about one third of the population is cut off from basic health care, those that do have access to these services know they cannot necessarily rely on the central government to consistently provide them.  And this all comes back to the inability for political reconciliation and political stability.

McCain wrongly assumes that the solution to the violence in Iraq is through economic sustainability. He is right, though, that economic viability is key to Iraq's long-term stability. Unfortunately, McCain's own policies make this impossible. The only way to actually jump start Iraq's economy for the long run is to withdraw our troops. If we withdraw, then perhaps young Iraqi's won't have a common enemy to coalesce around and instead can focus on rebuilding their lives and their country. Staying in Iraq for another 100 years only makes one thing certain: the energy to to jump-start Iraq's economy will never be focused in the right place.