We might be a little late to the party on this, but Scott Adams, the creator of the cartoon Dilbert, has a plan to end the Iraq war that might have put him in the running to be the White House’s war czar.
Adams suggests that we withdraw from all combat operations and instead build a heavily fortified perimeter around all of Iraq’s oil interests. As long as the civil war blazes, we continue to pump the Iraqis’ oil, with all proceeds going to help the Palestinians (and presumably other downtrodden members of the Arab world). When the sectarian fighting ends and a stable government is established in Iraq, the Iraqis can start pumping the oils themselves and use the natural resources that are rightfully theirs to benefit their own country.
In addition to giving the Iraqis a strong incentive to stop killing one another, the plan should end the loss of American lives because (1) American troops would no longer be in the streets trying to tamp down sectarian violence and (2) they wouldn’t be attacked while guarding the pipelines because any disruption to the flow of oil only hurts the Palestinians, and public opinion and diplomatic pressure fro the Arab world would probably keep that from happening.
Is it fanciful? Yes. Is it impractical? Yes. Is it ripe for corruption and exploitation? Yes.
Is it just about as good as anything else we’ve got going on right now? You bet.
