IRAQ’S OIL SURGE: And note this conclusion:

What the U.S. should promote in Iraq is some kind of oil trust, or stock or revenue dispersal, that would give individual Iraqis a share of their oil wealth. This would be both a tool to build national unity and to prevent any one political group from dominating Iraq’s main revenue source. If Mr. Schumer wants to help on that score, he might do some good.

I don’t place much faith in Charles Schumer, but I’d love to be wrong. And I’ve been pushing the oil trust idea since 2003. Had it gone into place then, I suspect we’d have seen things go much more smoothly. However despite support for the idea from Hillary Clinton, Milton Friedman, and Vernon Smith, as well as Michael Barone, it never really took hold.