His prescription for Iraq was characteristically straight and novel. Much of the fighting, he observed, is rooted in the issue of who controls the country’s oil wealth. He proposed a solution rather like the Permanent Fund, set up in Alaska in 1976 during the construction of the oil pipeline there. A quarter of all the state’s oil royalties are invested in the fund, and the dividends – typically around $600-$1500 per person – are divided equally between every Alaska resident.

Such a scheme would give every Iraqi an incentive to make sure that oil production and distribution, and all the rest of the economy that depended on it, took place both efficiently and peaceably. The great majority of the population, with real cash at stake, would put pressure on the militants to end their damaging activities. After that, he thought, peace could be maintained by a Swiss canton system, in which local groups had a great deal of autonomy over their own affairs.

An interesting idea, and maybe worth a try. After all, stranger things have happened. Indeed, Iraq is one of those countries which have adopted the flat tax.

Using this measure, Iraqi Sunni Muslim leaders have their brains in their backsides. They should have been supporting US troops from the very start and become loud supporters of a open pluralistic society and a strong federal government with an independent senate based on ethnicity and religion.

But like most contemporary Muslims, they are self indulgent to their emotions, which are manipulated by demagogues. So Sunni’s opposed the one thing that could safeguard their interests from a Shia clergy run from Iran, The US army.

Congratulations!

When Iraq descends into chaos that engulfs the whole region, the Sunni decadents of Iraq can hold the head up high, as the pilots of the ship who steered it directly into the iceberg, without flinching.

It’s depressing.

I don’t profess to have the answers to these questions…

And then come the answers anyway. The correct (verbal) response to this is to admit that all we are left with is the most pathetic kind of ignorance:

There are no factual “answers” because we – like Iraqis themselves – have no idea what’s going on. (Everything must be prefaced with “might,” “maybe,” “perhaps.” Everyone who has not done this has turned out to be wrong in their predictions-cum-”facts.”)

There are no moral “answers” because Iraq is now a moral vacuum. It is the ultimate existential nightmare. Talk of lesser evils in x or y by The Armchair Generals is little more than phantastic musings, signifying nothing.

The only humane solution I can find would be to break Iraq into 3 countries, the Kurdish North, The Sunni West and South West, and the Shiite South and South East.

That would not stop the blood shed but it would severely decrease it. But also risk opening up a Pandora’s box and starting a regional war anyway.

Iran will want influence over the Shiite country, and the Arab nationalists amongst the Shia would reject this.

Turkey will declare war on Kurdistan (Iran and Syria would most likely be involved).

Syria and Saudi Arabia would compete for influence amongst the Sunnis of Anbar. (The Syrians seem to have influence in the al-Awdah block whilst the Saudis seem to have influence in the clerical block Association of Muslim Scholars).

The risky part would be the process of each regional power settling into its region of influence.

The other option would be to allow the ex-Baath General to retake the country, let them purge the Mahdi Army, Badr Brigades and Al-Qaida in Iraq and let Iraq return to a Socialist Dictatorship allied with the Arabs. This is done whilst the US begins talking to Syria and prying it away from Iran could work wonders.