Iraq Withdrawal Plan

One of my hobbies is thinking up impractical solutions to world problems. Lately, my favorite problem is how to withdraw from Iraq without allowing a huge increase in civilian deaths. I have a solution. I call my plan the Ironic Peace by Stealing Oil Plan, or IPSOP.

The way this works is that the US informs the fledgling Iraqi government that we are going to withdraw from the population centers of Iraq, but we’re going to keep our military bases and take control of key Iraqi oil fields. The oil fields would be heavily guarded, of course, with wide perimeters.

Here’s the genius part. We ask the UN to form a commission to oversee the Iraqi government’s performance and the inevitable civil war. When that commission certifies that the Iraqis have worked out a solution for oil sharing, and power sharing, and when the civil war subsides, America agrees in advance to return the oil fields and phase out the military bases in five years. Until the UN certification comes, if it ever does, we just pump the Iraqi oil and use the revenue to help, for example, Palestinian children.

The beauty of this plan is that the Iraqis can choose to fight the civil war forever, or they can choose to get America out of their country. The longer the Iraqis kill each other, the more financial help the struggling Palestinians will get. Tragedy-wise, it’s a breakeven scenario. It’s morally neutral. And in the meantime, fewer Americans will die fighting in Iraq.

Would IPSOP work?

[Update: If insurgents attack the pipeline, they'd be attacking Palestinian interests. And we wouldn't need to protect all oil facilities, just whatever ones are easiest to control and protect.

As for funding Palestinians, I'm sure there's a way to limit the aid to something useful that can't get into the terrorists' hands. It could be shipments of medicine, for example. Obviously sending cash would be a bad idea. If funding Palestinians doesn't work for you, pick some starving Muslims in Africa.]

Comments

[steph]

Sounds better than the current (lack of) plan.

[Chris Anderson for President 2008 !!!]

And you guys wonder why we all hate the fuckin' 'Mercans !

Freem and Moxy for the whole world ! But only if you give us all your oil, gold, dimonds, youranium...

[Guild Wars Tactics]

Guild Wars Tactics; Tips Tools and Tactics for Guild Wars, Teambuilder, Charactercreator, Pve and Pvp all you need.Alles was Ihr zum spielen für Guild Wars benötigt. www.gw-tactics.de

[Zappy Corleone]

This is not a funny subject :(

[Turil]

I have a plan, too. It's called do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That's DUO for short (which sounds like some kind of superhero team, doesn't it? Or possibly the name of some piece of IKEA furniture...). DUO works with the basic human instinct (mostly subconscious) of mirroring other people's behavior. If we want others to be peaceful, we have to model peaceful behavior so that they learn how to do it.

Right now, we're modeling some extrordinarily stupid and destructive behavior, so it's no surprise that they are mirroring it back. We're teaching them the real American way all right...

[freddiemac]

Wait a minute, do you honestly believe that insurgents won't blow up US oil interests in Iraq because the petrol-dollars will benefit muslims? This is the same lot that is willing to blow up MOSQUES filled with MUSLIMS. So why would charity money stop them from blowing up Americans in oil trucks?

[Chrisgiraffe]

Posted by: Becky | May 15, 2007 at 08:19 AM
"Im not sure if this is a joke or not. The flaws in your so-called plan are immediately apparent. You cheapen the loss of life by saying that the US and the UN would do nothing to stop the bloodshed of a full-scale Sunni-Shiite civil war, instead cynically watching like vultures to steal their oil when the millions of "inevitable" deaths arise. Where is your spine? Where is your human compassion?"

Becky, you're just the sort of person that would jump in between two pit bulls who were chomping eachother's jugulars, and I commend you for it. Your compassion is just the kind Army recruiters are looking for. You should sign up today and get wheeled around in a tin can, er I mean Humvee, and spread that compassion around for two sides who have been ready to embrace American compassion for thousands of years before the invasion.

[Chrisgiraffe]

Posted by: Becky | May 15, 2007 at 08:19 AM
"Im not sure if this is a joke or not. The flaws in your so-called plan are immediately apparent. You cheapen the loss of life by saying that the US and the UN would do nothing to stop the bloodshed of a full-scale Sunni-Shiite civil war, instead cynically watching like vultures to steal their oil when the millions of "inevitable" deaths arise. Where is your spine? Where is your human compassion?"

Becky, you're just the sort of person that would jump in between two pit bulls who were chomping eachother's jugulars, and I commend you for it. Your compassion is just the kind Army recruiters are looking for. You should sign up today and get wheeled around in a tin can, er I mean Humvee, and spread that compassion around for two sides who have been ready to embrace American compassion for thousands of years before the invasion.

[Chrisgiraffe]

This is amazing. I've often wondered how one idea can pop up on two ends of the globe at the same time without the author's knowing about it. Kind of like Calculus being discovered independently by Leibnitz and Newton; Netwon 1, Liebnitz Ham sandwich.

My own spin on this was a bit more "Risk" than Adams. I agree that the oil should be taken and guarded. I would first put the money toward paying down the US debt. I mean, come on, we spent it on this bologney war, aren't we entitled to a refund or has the 90-day return limit expired? After paying down the debt then I would use it to hire a Swiss-Army like group to . . .see, there's where I get lost. Who should win this debacle?

Adams suggests it's a civil war between two factions. I see it as two wildcats fighting (Shia/Sunni) next to a normal observer (Kurds). Thus, I'd give the money to some Kurdish backed Swiss-Army pack of wild dogs to bite warring factions South of Kirkuk. Something like that. I had suggested elsewhere the money (after the refund to the US debt) be used to build mosques for both sides. Seems neutral enough. I mean, are we really such sacreligious fascists if we're building churches for them to use or blow up at their own discretion?

But I like the idea of moving the money to humanitarian aid. I'm thinking it has to be something even crazier than Palestinians and starving muslims. How about the Inuits? More huts, more polar bear first alert boxes, more snowmobiles. I mean, really, who could ever hate an Eskimo?

[Peng QingYuan]

Haha. Unexpectedly. I am from China. Very beautiful! !

[JohnBoy]

" the Prophet Mohammed REALLY liked young boys"

That explains a lot ... Mohammed was a fudgepacker!! And so are the Imams.

[Silly Sod]

Genius, pure simple Genius

Adams for president! I'd vote for you if I was american.

[DT Strain]

Scott's assuming that the people in charge of the U.S. *want* the bases out. The bases are the whole reason we're there. It's why victory has been redefined and we continue to stay and fight in a civil war even though all of our original war objectives were met long ago. Those aren't going anywhere - even if Iraq was a paradise. It's all about having an eternal presence in that geographic spot. Once the Iraqi's wised up to that, the percentage of them saying it was ok to attack Americans shot way up to the majority. When asked why, they respond that they believe the US intends to keep bases there indefinitely.
-- the current government's end goals are not our end goals -- therefore any 'solution' to this problem a citizen thinks up should focus on that mismatch first.

[Jesse]

"Mother Jones" has picked this up...maybe you should be War Czar:

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2007/05/4448_dilbert_creator.html

[Grimnir]

Hmm considering how few Palestinians there are, and how much revenue a country can obtain through its oil wealth... They'd make Kuwaiti's look poor in a couple years of Iraqi Civil War. How bad would it look when the Israelis are bombing villas with swimming pools and BMWs in the driveway?!?! "No these are cold blooded murderers!!! They just have really good decorators!"

[Karl H.]

Unfortunately, there is no way to implement that plan so that attacks against the pipeline would not affect US interests. It costs money to repair, maintain and guard the facilities. And putting out oil fires is dangerous.

More importantly, let's not forget that most terrorists/insurgents are nutcases prone to outlandish conspiracy theories. Do you think they would accept as fact that the oil money went to charity and didn't mostly end up in American pockets? I'm not sure even I would believe that.

[TallDave]

The problem is Palestinians spend their whole lives steeped in vicious hatred of Israel (such as the "Mickey Mouse" Hamas character recently in the news). This is not accidental; the Arab states use them as proxies in their ongoing war against Israel, and both they and Palestine's own leaders deflect blame for their rampant corruption and indifferent incompetence in governing and providing services.

So when Israel donates metal pipes for sewers in Palestine, the Palestinians use the pipes to make rockets to fire into Israel.

[JimmyKuddo]

There are many ways to end the war. I'm disapointed that we haven't made a plan that works.
It seems they have the wrong basic strategy, so everything that has been done is not effective enough to quell the violence.
Personally, I think the seventh of population that fled the country did the smart thing.
Its unfotunate that we cannot fortify existing citys because of insurgents.
Post more stuff later.

[LK]

Would be funny to talk about americans as if they were just things we can throw away, nobodies, nothing. It could be possible with a war in America, civilians killed and all that. Maybe the rest of the world could get together to invade USA and _let you know how you feel when hurt_

Yes indeed, would be cool to watch on television with popcorn and coke.

[Al]

Just one question, who do u think is controlling the Iraqi oil right now ?
and who do u think is benefiting from the Iraqi oil right now ? How transparent is this process is an open secret.

The chances of the Palestinian children will ever getting a dollar worth of Iraqi oil via the current Iraqi foreign "protectors"..is any body's guess..

[GFury]

The only problem with it is the US would lose the luxary of killing Arabs

[Bane]

Time to IMPEACH and prosecute the bastards who got us into this clusterfuck.

We already impeached Bill Clinton, dude. Relax. Besides, it didn't work.

Maybe we can get a chance to nail Hillary. Ewwww, there's a line that's gonna sell some erectile dysfunction meds...

[Bob Fresh]

Wouldn't it be in the best interest of oil consumers to support national policy that would stoke the fires of their civil war with the occasional, equal shipments of small arms to each side?

[robert]

The only flaw I see in the plan is the pipeline attacks. Why would they care whether they're affecting Palestinian children's funding by attacking the pipelines? They don't care about their own people, let alone the Palestinians.

[Mr. Neutron]

Your premise is faulty, there is no civil war in Iraq. Al Qaeda bombs sunnis one day, shiites the next, the media laps it up and you have a 'civil war'. Groups on either side get riled up and do some of their own killing. There is nothing even remotely like a civil war going on there.

The UN recently named Iran to its disarmament committee and now Zimbabwe is heading up the Commission on Sustainable Development. They are beyond useless and are in fact one of the main producers of chaos, murder and mayhem. Kofi turned a blind eye to Rwanda and they're doing it again in Darfur.

The UN has presided over the palestinians for more than 60 years, that's a long time to cling to refugee status. The US still has troops in S. Korea, Germany and Kosovo, why should they still be there and not in Iraq?

As for the Palestinian children, they're in the safe hands of Hamas-y Mouse. They'll be fine little jew-killing machines in no time.