Bush to Iraq: Try Socialism!

Now here’s a turnup for the books to confound the Naomi Klein crowd who think Bush invaded Iraq to impose free-market globalization on its economy: As part of his new plan for what some in the media call a “post-Zarqawi Iraq” (ding-dong, the witch is dead…) President Bush has suggested to Iraq’s new prime minister Nuri al-Maliki that he established a fund to allow ordinary Iraqis to share in their country’s oil wealth. A publicly-owned oil industry should redistribute its earnings among the general population, i.e. as an entitlement rather than a tax break for the super-rich? Sounds like the sort of thing you’d hear from a certain Mr. Chavez down in Venezuela…