A view from the Radical Middle

I'm a former [short-term] Executive Director of the World Bank (2002-2004) for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Spain and Venezuela. I write this blog to echo my voice and my noise. Though I know many will only be able to read it in yellow or blue, I do make an effort to write it in green. The Radical Middle or the Extreme Center is not any wishy-washy place to be, in a world where swimming to any of the ideological shores provides for a much calmer shelter.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Four Years and Counting in Iraq: Regarding "Lessons of War"

Regarding "Lessons of War"

The Post should be commended for not describing the extremely difficult way forward in simplistic terms. Having said that, the editorial should have given more attention to the role of oil, not because of its obvious energy significance but because it is an obstacle to good governance in Iraq.

The editorial said, "We may have underestimated the impoverishment brought about by misrule and sanctions and the brutalization born of totalitarian cruelty." But the sentence should have continued: ". . . that thrives especially well in countries cursed by large amounts of oil revenue flowing to a central government, eliminating any chance for a sustainable democracy."

Coming from Venezuela, where oil revenue is centralized, I know that loyalties to country, tribe and sect are all irrelevant compared with the unnatural loyalty that can be purchased by those in control of a checkbook fattened by oil. If the United States wants to achieve anything going forward, it had better find a way to distribute Iraq's oil revenue directly to the Iraqi people.

Per Kurowski

Bethesda