Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich have written a joint op-ed for the Wall Street Journal calling for reconstruction and redevelopment funding for Iraq along the lines of the WorkFare program used in New York City in the late nineties. Gingrich and Giuliani hope to reduce unemployment in Iraq; it’s a little-known fact that the Iraqi unemployment rate (between 30-50% according to these presidential hopefuls) is the leading killer of American GIs.
I’ll leave aside the fact that Giuliani and Gingrich are suggesting that a tactic aimed at reducing the size of the welfare rolls in America’s largest city during America’s largest peacetime economic expansion be used to stop a civil war in Iraq. I think most Republican voters will be concerned to see that Giuliani and Gingrich’s solution in Iraq is a massive expansion of government spending through the creation and operation of government-owned factories.
Today, Iraq has almost 200 state-owned factories that have been abandoned by the governing authorities since the outbreak of war in 2003. Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Paul A. Brinkley has led a team to 26 of those facilities, traveling far beyond the Green Zone to idled plants from Fallujah to Ramadi. Mr. Brinkley believes that under Department of Defense leadership, at least 10 of these facilities could be re-opened almost immediately, putting more than 10,000 Iraqis to work within weeks. This should be done without delay–and it is only the beginning.
When every Republican contender is fighting for the Most Authentic Republican Ever crown, it strikes me as odd that the solution to peace in Iraq isn’t more American troops on the ground or greater reliance on the power of private corporations to solve governmental problems, but rather a Roosevelt-like use of government employment mechanisms along the lines of the Tennessee Valley Authority. This is a Republican solution? I shutter to think that a Democrat would even consider such a miniscule step would lead Iraq in the right direction. I’m not saying employment of Iraqis shouldn’t be an aspect of reconstructing their war-torn country, but opening ten factories is not an answer that anyone who’s seriously thinking about bringing peace to Iraq can suggest.
The most charitable reading of the Giuliani/Gingrich proposal is that they think that Iraq’s economy is a crucial issue. I’d argue people’s heads getting chopped off in pursuit of ethnic cleansing is a bigger one, but then again, I was never business partners with Bernard Kerik.
One last thing. This op-ed begs the question of what Gingrich thinks he’s getting out of co-authoring an op-ed about Rudy Giuliani’s successes as mayor of New York. Why is Gingrich trying to ride Giuliani’s coattails?
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[...] This certainly makes Gingrich’s co-authorship of an op-ed with Rudy Giuliani about the successes of Giuliani as mayor of New York City make sense. Gingrich is positioning himself to be an influence peddler and an advisor, not a candidate. I have to wonder what Gingrich hopes to get out of having the next president be a Republican cast in his mold. He doesn’t seem to be a likely vice presidential candidate, so I’d lean towards a cabinet position. His support of the escalation in the war in Iraq and long ties to the Israel lobby make me think that Newt wouldn’t mind being tapped as the Secretary of Defense or Secretary of State. [...]
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January 22, 2007 at 12:17pm