Its nice out tonight, ay?

Its been a while!

Hows everything been going?

I think I dreamed of you last night.

Or maybe I didn’t, maybe I saw you. Maybe I was with you. Not sure actually, I think I loved you.

How’s everyone? Do tell them I say hi, or maybe you don’t have to. I heard they all died on an airplane they weren’t on. Weird, ay? If you do run into them, you can just murmur an inaudible phrase to them, maybe gibberish, because it doesn’t really matter, does it? I do hope I see everyone again.

Maybe I will tonight.

But Hey! Lets talk about now.

Do you often come to this bar? I do.

That man up there doing karaoke, thats my wife’s boyfriend.

We’re here together, he’s a really cool guy.

Hey, five bucks says you can’t guess what he’s singing! I’m guessing its the great gig in the sky by Floyd.

Oh nevermind I forgot that song is almost entirely an instrumental.

His voice, or his sound, is just so mournful or fearful or orgasmic.

Weird, ay?

Oh, you’ve never heard it?

Oh, you don’t know the song?

Do me a favor check it out.

-Oh yes, a pepsi and water please.

Through the clatter of silver, ceramic, and glass a distant subtle female murmur is heard, “If you hear this whisper, you’re dying”.

Flowers blooming in the water
In a pail for the dead.

Strange these flowers,
Like limp hands;
Rubied like
Old drying wounds.

When the blood coagulates
There will be no more rose water
Running over her dead daughter
And escaping in the drain.

Ladies keep their fingers clean
And live to see other days;
Or else Father chops them off
One by one
And pumps the juice.

Juiced the hairy mouths of judges,
Juiced the gadflies on the slab.

Mother, Father
Wash away their daughter.

Then I realized this story comes shortly after this remarkable Jordanian blogger, Ajloun, calls it quits, after seemingly never ending tales of corruption revolving around public officials. This is happening in a country facing political, economic and social challenges all taking a heavy toll, with a local media in a perpetual downward spiral, and an extremely frustrated people.

Brand Jordan is bust. Brand Jordan is in the worse shape ever, it seems. And no sooner had I come to that revelation, this appeared. Country brand ranking. I’m not big on rankings, but it is some kind of gauge. So not only is brand Jordan aching from the inside, but it’s also aching out there.

Brand Jordan needs to evolve into something amazing so as to regain the trust of those who love it. Brand Jordan needs its diverse lovers to find new ways of living on common ground. Brand Jordan needs to be able to reignite compassion in everyone.

While reading the wide range of comments on Madian’s Books@Café story I realized every single one was right. Nobody was wrong. Not only was every contribution right, but each was put out there with so much passion.

So if they are all right and the passion is clearly felt, what’s the problem?

The lack of vision is the problem. Brand Jordan has failed to keep the vision alive and the lights are dimming, it fell off the track at some point. Why does that matter? Because people need a vision to be able to achieve their goals. Passion helps us define the spheres we want to be in, but a unified vision helps us see the journey. And when brand Jordan is bust, we can’t see.

This task is for everybody. Coming from diverse origins, faiths, ethnicities, classes, political affiliations, cultures, colors, ages, shapes and sizes, people in Jordan can find their places on the road forward.

Shutting down the Books@Café and the other F&B outlets around the country in a way that allows the system to abuse its own rules is the saddest low point we can get to. It does nothing but drive us to lose faith and cultivate apathy. A restaurant’s license should be honored. A rule should be respected. Common sense should prevail. Public servants should not forget that they are there to serve. Instilling fear in people should not be allowed.

If our vision includes a Jordan with special rules during Ramadan, everyone will respect that. If the vision includes business as usual twelve months a year, everyone will respect that. But when we dishonor our own rules, disrespect our own diverse society, deny its realities, we become a broken people with a broken country brand. And no matter how hard we try, how much we invest in it, how loud we shout, we will not get it right. All that happens is that we pollute the intellectual, spiritual, and physical landscape of our country.

Vision is why we are able to take on change and challenges passionately when everyone else says it’s not possible. Brand Jordan needs our help. Defining, sharing the vision for, and fixing brand Jordan must be our absolute priority. If we know where we want to go, we can better define who we need to be for the journey.

The original version of this piece is here.

His ground breaking and often controversial documentaries have been the template for an entire generation of reality drama, most keenly felt in Paul Greengrass’ work on “United 93.” Now Broomfield seems to have once again found a subject that will divide the public and tap into the collective zeitgeist of the moment.

His “Battle for Haditha” is the true story of a small engagement between a Marine patrol and two local men who have been paid 1000 dollars by al Qaeda to detonate an IED. The chaos that ensues after the explosion which kills a Marine Captain quickly develops into a massacre of the local population by the surviving Marines. In all 24 people died, but this is no crucifixion of the U.S. forces or a condemnation of the insurgents, but rather an even-sided account of one terrible day.

In fact, “Battle for Haditha” is an internal struggle of conscience for all concerned; Marines, civilians, and insurgents alike.

Broomfield develops a Truman Capote “true fiction” account of life in Iraq. His documentary style is present and correct but he is also adept at opening this canvas wider through his excellent use of music; most notably the thrash metal soundtrack which constantly accompanies the exhausted and bored Marines through their daily lives.

The young Marines are played by ex-servicemen which further ads to the personal tragedy of the film. Corporal Ramirez, our main focus, is devastating in an emotional scene where he breaks down shortly before the massacre takes place. It is all the more poignant because we know Elliot Ruiz has experienced this battle fatigue for real, he knows Ramirez because Ramirez is him and every other Marine.

Broomfield also picks up on the class and background of the young soldiers. Ramirez is from Philadelphia, “the murder capital of America” and has traded that place for “the murder capital of the world” as one Marine puts it. It is as if America has a ready trained multitude of urban warriors to send into 21st century war zones, and perhaps this is their government’s grand design: not to develop those inner-city projects so men will enlist and kill foreigners, rather than each other. “Battle” could well be a companion piece in this sense to the documentary “Rampage,” which featured a young soldier from Miami returning from Iraq to his equally violent American city.

However Broomfield’s film also dwells upon the local population. The bomb planters are small businessmen, one sells DVD porn to the very soldiers he will attack, and the other drinks alcohol and has to hide this fact from al Qaeda who pay them to attack the Americans. Perhaps the greatest irony is that al Qaeda pay them in dollars, thus funding a capitalist society they wish to eradicate, and using the very symbol they so despise.

The most gut-wrenching scene is where the initiators of the violence stand with an al Qaeda member watching the carnage unfold beneath them. They realise too late what they have unleashed on their own people, only for the al Qaeda representative to calmly explain how it will be used for propaganda. Later back with his family, one of the insurgents collapses in grief, the audience in no doubt of the hideous burden he has brought upon himself.

The massacre of the civilians is a stunning piece of film making. Their homes are attacked with military precision and it is that professionalism of arms which leaves the audience spellbound when seeing its effect on defenceless women and children. Once the Marine attack is finished we are lost for words but also at a loss for whom to blame.

The Marines are the obvious choice, bred on a diet of al Qaeda propaganda DVDs and pounding music, but then again is their leadership to blame for not allowing Ramirez to see a doctor when he was clearly suffering from post traumatic stress disorder? The insurgents planted the bomb but they were at the mercy of al Qaeda. Or were the civilians to blame as they did not reveal the IED to the authorities even though they saw it being planted?

“Battle for Haditha” is the first remarkable film about the unique situation in Iraq and it will take some beating, such is its emotional depth, and scope of its intelligence.

Further reading: “Battle for Haditha” premieres in Dubai.

“Never look back,” Omar said,
But what if looking forward is not an option either?
The only thing you see there
Is the dust beneath your feet.

Anyway, Omar, you still married some idiot:
Some woman who is like a wormhole
Rotating slowly in all dimensions,
Like a blind spider in a web,
Hatching.

Why should I listen to you?

Here I have my shops and tea at dusk.
I have tried one hundred kinds of firming cream,
One hundred pairs of iron shoes,
One hundred loaves of iron bread.

I have known pain as magnificent as yours.

I just want a little bit of peace, Omar,
Some music and hair grease, Omar.
Some boy who catches my eye
In a car on the bridge in purring Ramadan traffic
With no desire to know how to unscrew these bolts
And take me apart.

The announcement came a day after Iraqi government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh announced that seven Arab countries are set to reopen their embassies in Baghdad this year. These countries include Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, Algeria and Morocco.

Jordan also recently announced that it would reopen its embassy to Iraq after the historic visit of King Abdullah, who became the first Arab head of state to do so since the 2003 invasion that toppled the former regime.

Lebanon is only one of five Arab states to currently have an embassy in Iraq, alongside Syria, Palestine, Yemen, Lebanon and Tunisia, which it opened in 2006. Official relations had been strained for six years between 1994 and 2000 when Lebanon broke its relations with Iraq in 1994 following the murder of an Iraqi dissident in Lebanon.

Sinioria travelled to Baghdad to discuss trade and energy, his spokesman quoted by the AFP as saying: “The discussions with Iraqi leaders will be on bilateral relations and particularly trade and oil.”

Renewed relations with Lebanon would be a positive sign for Maliki’s government, and both countries share a similar recent history. In the late 1960s and early 70s Beirut was considered the ‘Switzerland of the Orient’ and was home to a Riviera as opulent and international as any in Southern France, as well as being an Arab financial and medical centre, with Shia, Sunni and Christian living together in relative harmony.

Iraq was an oil rich state with high rates of education, renown for its industry and culture and pro-Western outlook, seemingly combining the best of East and West, as well as combining a mixed population of Shias, Sunnis and Christians. The ties that bind are the brutal and punishing conflicts both countries have endured since then, reducing these once prosperous nations to sectarian battlegrounds, divided internally and used as pawns in a regional power struggle.

As the war rages in Iraq and simmers in the Levant, commentators have been quick to point out the similarities, and many believe that a solution to either, or both, conflicts may hold the key to lasting peace in the Middle East. The reality is of course different. Regional power Saudi Arabia is an ally of the Lebanese government, but shows indifference and hostility to the power brokers in Baghdad.

Politics aside, Iraq and Lebanon have in the past few decades shared a strong trading relationship. In the 1970s and 80s the Iraqi market accounted for over a quarter of Lebanese total exports, interrupted by the first Gulf War.

In the late 1990s however, many Lebanese companies turned to Iraq in a time of economic downturn and uncertainty, seeing opportunity for manufactured goods and foodstuffs in a country crippled by sanctions but rich with petrodollars. The two countries signed a bilateral free trade agreement in April 2002, abolishing tariffs on goods traded between the two countries.

According to official figures provided the Center for Economic Research at the Chamber of Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture of Beirut, exports to Iraq (including both the public and private sectors) totalled $71,117. However an article in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs journal in 2002 claimed that “the actual number was close to $400 million. Some even go so far as saying it exceeded $1 billion—a huge figure, considering that Lebanon’s public debt amounts to around $30 billion.”

The article went on to say that “hundreds of other Lebanese companies could suffer as a result of the war on Iraq.” Since 2003 though, Lebanon has played a minor role in the U.S.-controlled Iraqi economy, despite some optimism shown by Lebanese commentators in 2003, who believed that Lebanon was poised to benefit strongly from lucrative U.S. reconstruction contracts.

The past 12 months though have been a different story, and as I wrote recently, Lebanon has been one of the few consistent Arab sources of private capital into Iraq. Although Lebanese investors missed out on the privatisation of Iraq’s mobile phone network in 2003 and 2007, entrepreneurs have been leading the way in a variety of non-energy sectors including construction, tourism, banking and industry.

Lebanon is a major exporter of cement to Iraq, and Make Oil, a prominent Lebanese firm, has expressed its desire to build a cement factory in Dohuk, northern Iraq in addition to a $3 billion oil refinery. Byblos Bank opened an Iraqi branch in Erbil in 2007 and has announced expansion plans. A sponsor of the Iraq Industry summit in Dubai earlier this year, Byblos’ operations in Iraq include financing trade and infrastructure projects. Byblos also acts as an intermediary for Iraqi banks trying to do business overseas.

Tourism and Iraq are not often mentioned in the same sentence, but in the virtually autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, it has taken off in a big way due to relative security. Lebanese companies over the year have announced plans for a massive mountain resort in Shaqlawa County, Erbil and a $55m 5-star hotel in the city of Erbil, to be managed by a major Gulf hotel group, Rotana Hotels.

Investment into Iraqi Kurdistan is nothing new, however. Earlier this year, UAE property giant DAMAC announced a $15 billion residential project for the region, showing just how much confidence the region has attracted. Undoubtedly this attracts attention to Iraq as a whole but the uncertainty over the oil and gas law and, more significantly, the status of Iraqi Kurdistan does not guarantee that the benefits will spill over into the rest of the country either in the short to medium term.

Many Lebanese companies, such as Sfeir Industries which has a contract with the U.S. military to supply food services in Baghdad, operate out of Jordan or Turkey.

Carlos Sfeir, general manager of the company told Oxford Business Group in an interview that “The growth is very interesting and the potential is huge so we take the risk,” but admitted that “We never send company personnel to Baghdad.”

Alongside boosting diplomatic acceptance of the current Iraqi administration, Lebanese firms could in many ways offer far greater support by venturing south in search of commercial opportunities and setting a precedence for Arab companies who are better equipped with cultural ties and physical proximity than international firms. They can also show that there is money to be made outside of the energy sector.

Before 2003 Lebanon exported to Iraq over 97 articles, including food products, leather, wood, cement, iron, books and newspapers, clothes, and machinery: products desperately needed in 2008.

Corrupt and unmanned border crossings have made the Iraqi market an easy target for Turkish and Iranian manufacturers and merchants, peddling everything from tinned food, radios and other consumer items to the detriment of Iraqi industry and consumers alike. A colleague in Baghdad often complains of shoddy imports, and wishes that the government would take action. He was delighted recently with the purchase of a Lebanese made petrol-powered generator for his basement, and wants better quality goods to return to the general market, without premiums demanded by blackmarketeers.

As much as Iraqi consumers or Lebanese exporters would wish to focus on trade and commerce, and for agreements to be made, yet oil and gas dominate the headlines.

Iraq was a major exporter of oil to Lebanon in the 1970s and 80s but output was cut after the first Gulf War. In 2000 Iraq and Syria agreed to build a pipeline to Syria’s Mediterranean port of Banias, including Lebanon in the process, and it courted controversy for flouting UN imposed sanctions with the volumes exported. It was shut by the U.S. soon after the 2003 invasion.

The 200,000 – 300,000 bpd Iraq-Syria-Lebanon Pipeline (ISLP) has been closed and the Iraqi portion reported unusable since 2003. The initial capacity of the pipeline was approximately 700,000 bpd, with potential to expand to 1.4 million bpd, according to data obtained from the U.S. government’s Energy Information Administration.

Government statistics put Iraq oil production at 2.46 million bpd in July 2008, with exports at 1.89 million bpd.

On August 11th 2008 the Iraqi Ministry of Trade released a statement saying that Iraq and Syria have agreed on terms to revitalize an idle pipeline that used to carry Iraqi crude to Syrian terminals on the Mediterranean. Discussions have been ongoing since the beginning of the year to re-open the pipeline and a Russian company has been widely tipped to win the contract for renovation works after carrying out a survey of the remaining pipeline and facilities. There have also been talks to add a second line parallel to the existing one.

Whilst Lebanese investment in Iraq is on the up, what of Iraqi interests in Lebanon? After all a healthy trade relationship is a balanced one.

There are no exact figures to measure trade between the two countries, but it is reported that millions of dollars flow between the two on a monthly basis: the more exports from Lebanon the better for it; Lebanon’s exports surpassed $5.96 billion in the first four months of 2008, but the trade deficit widened to $3.65 billion in the same period.

During the Israel-Lebanon conflict in the summer of 2006 the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs released a statement saying that the current conflict in Lebanon was having a negative impact on the Iraqi economy as most of its trade with Lebanon has been frozen and business with Syria has decreased.

It quoted Muhammad Rushi, an economic analyst and professor at Baghdad University, as saying: “Lebanon and Syria were Iraqi’s most important trading partners…Hundreds of contracts had to be cancelled or postponed due to the current violence in Lebanon.”

Iraqi refugees in Lebanon number only 20,000 - 50,000, U.N. data shows. Such small numbers are unlikely to make a significant economic impact on the local economy compared to their counterparts in Jordan and Syria. Iraqi capital has flowed steadily into Jordan and the influx of refugees into Syria has sent house prices soaring. To compare, only 20% - predominantly Christian - of Iraqi refugees in Lebanon said they want to integrate into the country.

Last Monday, the influential Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star published an article on the progress of the Iraqi investment law that was designed to encourage the development of Iraq’s private sector and to reassure foreign investors. Passed in 2006, it has still not been implemented, and this failure is almost a big a barrier to foreign investment as the conflict itself. It has also not helped that private sector growth in Iraq has been low key at best.

“It is the nature of capital to favour markets in which a single, clear, comprehensive law is applied regarding investment, and where a single authority is responsible for this law,” the article states, “Therefore, stability, clear principles and rules that govern investment operations, and modernizing laws to simplify regulations are considered the main means for providing a suitable investment climate.” Where there is no comprehensive law, it sums up, “there is chaos.”

The solutions it offers are simple: Reduced bureaucracy, investment timeframes to prevent foreign monopolies, increased tax exemption and investor protection from exploitation and corruption.

It may be wishful thinking but if regional investors, led by companies from Lebanon with a long history of trading with Iraq, make a real effort to enter the Iraqi market and nurture private sector growth, it would surely be in the interest of the government of Iraq to legislate for a better trade and investment climate.

Oliver Pearce is an editor at a leading Middle East focused business information service. You can contact him at: olivercpearce [at] gmail [dot] com.

The visiting celebrities were eager to talk about their experience at a workshop in Jordan’s SAE Institute, a media technology training institute, pointing out that the country has a lot of local talent just waiting to take off.

One SAE student later told me that he personally wasn’t impressed with the workshop at all, though I immediately wondered how much of the negativity stemmed from simple inertia: the lingering idea that nothing with artistic or entertainment value could possibly be created in Jordan, ever (the same student told me he despises the recent Jordanian film “Captain Abu Raed,” a ground-breaking movie I adored).

I have heard repeated statements that Jordan in particular is an “anti-intellectual” environment, as opposed to, say, Lebanon or Egypt. I asked Waleed Zuaiter, whose parents divide their time between Amman and Ramallah, what he thought about said claims of anti-intellectualism:

Waleed, who co-produces the New York Arab American Comedy Festival besides working as an actor, told me: “I don’t think there is anything “anti-intellectual” about Jordan at all. Amman doesn’t need to “import” culture, it is full of culture and history. When it comes to Comedy, which is an Art form as all the other Arts, I would recommend that Jordan not solely “import” comedy from the West, but to really focus on creating a home-grown practice and following where comedians and audiences can enjoy stand-up comedy in their own native language.”

Born in Sacramento, California, Waleed spent most of his childhood in Kuwait and, as a native Arabic speaker, highlights the importance of understanding a culture from within.

Maysoon Zayid, whose recent role in Adam Sandler’s “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” has garnered much attention, is another native Arabic speaker, despite having grown up in New Jersey. It was refreshing to hear Maysoon speak about working with Adam Sandler at the press conference, because many of my earnest friends had quickly dismissed the film, which aims to poke fun at conflict in the Middle East, as racist clap-trap.

Maysoon, and others, argued that Adam Sandler was in fact very sensitive to the subject matter and wanted to make fun of both Jews and Arabs in a manner that was entertaining. Maysoon is a woman with agency, and then some, and she strikes you as a person you don’t want to piss off under any circumstances. The idea of her taking on a demeaning role seems ludicrous, all pious hand-wringing on the subject be damned.

When I asked Maysoon what’s next for her, she spoke of performing at the upcoming Democratic National Convention and working on another comedy project, “Little American Whore,” as well as translating said project into Arabic. Will the word “whore” be kept in the Arabic title? Of course it will.

And that’s the thing about Maysoon – she’s bawdy and fresh and brash. I’ve corresponded with her for an interview before, but seeing her in the flesh is a rare treat.

Interacting with Maysoon made me think of how many women in the entertainment industry are still expected to be not fully human, with sculpted hairdos and on-call stylists and the cool appeal of sirens. It is comedy, a genre generally overlooked by cultural gate-keepers in the world, which often allows more women to freely act out the livelier, messier sides of their actual lives.

Meanwhile, having remembered that Maysoon once spoke of being accused of anti-Semitism, I wondered if “Axis of Evil” Aron Kader, whom I last saw in Dubai, had ever encountered such accusations in his professional life. Aron said no, but he also mentioned that he knows where the sensitivity comes from.

In the U.S., it is very hard to have a rational debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So hard, in fact, that it seems as though laughing about it may be the only way for all sides to start talking.

Meanwhile, Dean Obeidallah, “Axis of Evil” star and co-founder and co-producer of the New York Arab American Comedy Festival, noted that many people had told him that Jordanians do not laugh. He was pretty emphatic when he said that he didn’t believe this was the case. Jordanians laughed hysterically when Dean and Maysoon gave live comedy performances in Amman, for example.

I have to testify that one could hear said hysterical laughter from blocks away. The cats on the trash-bins perked up their ears, and the neighbourhood, lively by all standards, felt as though it was brimming with fizzy good energy.

It’s no wonder. Like Maysoon, Dean is incredibly funny, with precise timing and an impish smile. He also comes off as incredibly, disarmingly sincere. This was his second time in Amman and he spoke highly of its growth and development, even if the Ammanites’ practice of parking on the sidewalk left him bewildered (growth and development isn’t making those streets any wider).

When the inevitable question along the lines of “aren’t you afraid of becoming too mainstream?” sounded forth at the press conference, Dean grinned widely. On one hand, money for his projects is important, that much ought to be obvious to all, even the most radically anti-establishment among us. On the other hand, he spoke about the notion that there are plenty of generic comedians out there, and being an Arab-American comedian means that one cannot aspire to be generic, lest one loses one’s audience.

Waleed Zuaiter told my fellow journalist that the group’s talent “ does not end with being Arab.” The performances are not gimmicks that will simply lose their flavour once an even greater audience catches on.

Waleed struck me as the youngest of the group. I was shocked when he told me he was thirty-seven. He has an Arab Errol Flynn quality to him, something that Hollywood, in its infinite wisdom, has to take a closer look at.

We spoke about racism in the entertainment industry; I recalled the time that actor Kal Penn came to Duke while I was an undergrad, and sparked a pretty sobering discussion on what it means to be “too ethnic” in Hollywood. Waleed told me that he feels fortunate that he hasn’t experienced what Kal Penn spoke about directly. He said he just preferred to focus on the art – “art” is a word that gets bandied about with some ease, but coming from Waleed, you think its invocation to be genuine.

Interacting with this group makes you wonder what it would have been like to see George Carlin young, at the height of his potential. Wandering over to Aron Kader, I asked him to comment on Carlin’s recent passing, since I was aware of Aron being a fan.

“He was the greatest.”

Damn straight. And you may be too.

Darwish’s words extend far beyond the confines of the conflict from which they were born. They touched the hearts and minds of individuals of all backgrounds and beliefs. A genuine love so evident in every poetic expression propelled his work to capture the attention of millions worldwide.

To dissect the Palestinian poet’s words and achievements would be to separate the colors of a timeless painting, and I will therefore refrain from performing such disservice. Rather than taking apart the life and time of Mahmoud Darwish, I will instead take a moment to reflect on what can be taken away from his very existence.

We often honour the greatest among us only once they have passed from our plains. We celebrate them, commiserate the great loss, bid farewell and shelve them in the annals of history. To precisely trace the impacts great individuals have had on minds and lives is no easy feat, and it often takes beyond a lifetime to discover the value of one man’s dreams. Despite this, or perhaps as a result thereof, the achievements of a great few often inspire hope and courage in many. Darwish’s dreams brought light and music to an otherwise dark quagmire and his commitment to this dream was in and of itself a universal message.

As once he eulogized another great Palestinian thinker, Edward Said, today we bid farewell to Mahmoud Salim Darwish and his timeless and touchingly passionate narrative. But rather than shelve it, we will cherish it and learn it, allow it to instill within us the courage to dream, and the conviction that it is our right.

The mind of Mahmoud Darwish was home to a love that was almost expressed as a forbidden desire for the fruits of a long lost land, for freedom from displacement. We are drawn to his words because the constant sense of separation from what is natural is the heartbeat of every created piece. To Palestine he was wed, and from Palestine he was separated.

Palestine sleeps alone, for she has lost her greatest muse.

Mahmoud, Mahmoud,

Exile, separation and divorce,

You witnessed them at all,

Persecution, violence, killings,

You felt all.

Remained true to yourself, true to the little voice in your heart,

Loyal to your friends from the first day,

Loyal to justice, peace, fairness and statehood,

Loyal to people living in cages,

Help your people, be them living in London, New York and Paris, remember who they are,

Help them remember where their real homes are.

Mahmoud, Mahmoud,

Never compromise,

“ Why do you call yourself Jonathan?” still hangs my heart.

“ Why do you call yourself Jonathan? Why call yourself Jonathan? How come…How come…”

Yes, I hate my name,

Yes, I hate my name!

Yes, I have been polluted,

Yes, I have no power to change myself.

As violence tapers off, oil exports increase, and global crude prices remain high, Iraq’s economy is set to grow by 8 percent in 2008 and will end the year with a predicted $79 billion budget surplus, according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

But with the U.S. presidential campaign in full swing the Democrats are lashing out at Iraq for draining American money and American lives. The media machine has been in overdrive, with scathing attacks from both neo-con and liberal commentators scoring points on the same issues: U.S. lives, U.S. money, and the impact on the lives of U.S. consumers.

They demand that Iraq now pay is own way for reconstruction and embrace a potentially tragic cut-and-run strategy that could lead to further internal and regional instability.

It is clear that only a prolonged long-term investment, combining economic, military and political initiatives can restore the home of Arab cultural and economic development.

As Naomi Klein put it in a piece for the Guardian newspaper, “The country’s invaders should be paying billions in reparations not using the war as a reason to pillage its richest resource.” She was of course talking about Big Oil in Iraq, but the sentiment sticks: The U.S. and the Allies at the very least owe the people of Iraq a basic infrastructure, let alone a guarantee of minimum security in which to rebuild.

American dollars, $48 billion to be precise, have been spent since 2003 on reconstruction and rebuilding projects. US Aid, Provincial Reconstruction Teams and Microfinance credit initiatives are all examples of U.S. efforts to rebuild the country, not to mention the hundreds of schools, hospitals, water plants and generating stations built by Allied forces.

Having closely monitored Iraq’s economic development for the past 18 months, I can testify to the changes taking place. Daily reports from local media and regular feature stories from foreign news agencies talk of reconstruction projects in Baghdad and beyond: solar street lighting, repaving of city streets, beautification projects in public squares, new parks and leisure attractions and the return of some sort of nightlife in urban areas.

But these projects – some complete, some in progress, most not even begun - are barely a start to what is required. A cliché such as ‘tip of the iceberg’ would not do justice to the mess the country is in.

Daily conversations with our correspondent in Baghdad or with a friend in Anbar province paint a picture of such incredible hardship that you wonder how anything at all gets done. Reports flood my inbox: of sewage piling up like mountains, hours upon end without electricity in 40 degree heat, no running water, and 40% unemployment.

Iraq lacks even the most basic of infrastructure for its residents. Electrical generating capacity runs at just over 40% of demand; in a country awash with oil the government spends billions each year on fuel imports; and overpriced, shoddy goods from Syria and Iran flood the consumer market.

And so the call grows ever louder: “Don’t sit on it, spend it.”

U.S. and Iraqi officials have privately admitted that money has not been spent quickly enough, and that not enough is being done to improve the lives of ordinary Iraqis. Local businessmen blame the authorities’ lack of experience and a shortage of skilled local contractors (due to the brain drain since 2003). Security is cited as the biggest issue.

Corruption has eaten away plenty of funding. The Iraqi government launched its own watchdog, the Integrity Board, to go after official fraudsters, but reports indicate that its members have been thwarted by internal party politics – although a recent statement from a senior official indicated that many of those accused of crimes have now fled the country for fear of prosecution.

Safeguards have been put in place by Iraqi and U.S. officials to regulate government spending better, but even these can have a limited impact. A report on Tuesday revealed that the U.S. has spend over $100 billion on private contractors in Iraq since 2003, and several America-based firms have been charged with waste.

Sub-standard construction, projects unfinished, wildly over-inflated costs arising from no-bid or single bid offers are all indicative of this. Everyone knows the story of Dick Cheney and Haliburton.

Iraqis themselves are naturally bitter that the government is sitting on all this money that’s going nowhere, but piles of cash alone don’t solve social and public service problems.

A glance need only be cast at the oil flush GCC states to prove this: The government of Kuwait on Sunday had the cheek to link Iraq’s budget surplus to the war debt it owes the Kingdom, totalling $16 billion, the very same government that earlier in the year spend billions to subsidise private bank debts run up by its own citizens.

If you read the comments of Democratic Senator Carl Levin, a pattern of shirking responsibility emerges: “We should not be paying for Iraqi projects while Iraqi oil revenues continue to pile up in the bank, including outrageous profits from $4-a-gallon gas prices in the U.S,” he said last week.

Yes, indeed. Why should innocent Iraqis, who have been tortured and impoverished, receive support when the governments of the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait have to subsidise the reckless spending of their own citizens? Would someone like to remind me how many hundreds of billions have been lost in this credit crunch, or how many jumbo jets oil-rich sheikhs need for their private use?

For the sake of parity however, and for the sake of preserving my capitalist credentials, I invite you to play the numbers game with me:

Iraq announced a supplementary budget of $21 billion which was approved by the parliament last week, on top of a record $47 billion budget set at the start of the year. The lion share of this money is for expenses, with only a fraction for investment.

The Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq from April 2003-June 2004, threw the country’s economy wide open to the principles of the free market and wound down many state run factories, with tens of thousands of job losses as the result. The insurgency then all but halted private sector growth and foreign investment, and the FDI has remained “depressed since 2003” according to the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Both foreign and Arab capital inflows into Iraq have been slow. Kuwaiti financial firms have taken small stakes in local banks, Turkish and Iranian companies have been doing brisk business in the north and south respectively, and the odd Saudi or Lebanese investor has popped up for construction projects, yet most of the money coming into the country stubbornly heads to the all but independent Kurdistan province. Furthermore, none of these sums together could make much headway, even if the projects they fund were completed overnight.

A news report on Monday said that Iraqis still depend heavily on the government for jobs and that 30,000 new government jobs are to be created this year. Most of the $125 billion worth of projects currently being undertaken in the country has been underwritten by the government.

Oil remains the biggest source of revenue in Iraq. It will account for over 90% of government funds for 2008 and the foreseeable future, and oil and gas are the only sectors to truly to be receiving foreign attention on a scale needed to rebuild the country. Most of these resources are earmarked for export.

Therefore, the biggest blow to those who say that Iraq should “pay its own way” is the slide in global oil prices. U.S. crude has fallen by about $35 from its record high struck in July, and this does not factor in Basra Light Crude (the main Iraqi export) which is sold at a discount and at a government controlled price set at the beginning of each month.

London-based research house Business Monitor International released a country economic forecast for Iraq on August 6th that criticizes those who think that Iraq is going to be able to pay is own way anytime soon.

Titled “From Surplus To Deficit”, it opens with: “While current high oil prices will provide a boon to central government finances this year, we expect the budget to fall into deficit in 2009, and for deficits to widen over the forecast period.”

Taking a negative view of oil prices and capping oil production at 3.3 million barrels per day, BMI expects “oil revenues to contract around 17% in 2009, and then to continue to fall, but at a slower rate, over the remainder of the forecast period [2008-2012].”

The report says that government subsidies will continue to grow and that current expenditure will increase 30% in 2008. BMI also believes that the government will embark on a costly economic stimulation programme: “We therefore expect current expenditure to continue to grow, and for investment expenditure to increase at double-digit rates over the forecast period.”

With 69% percent of the 2007 investment budget spent, up from the 22% achieved in 2006, and a better security situation allowing for these numbers to grow, Iraq’s finances will be stretched. As the last of the U.S. reconstruction allocation is spent, oil revenues contract, and economic diversification and private sector growth progress slowly, Iraq will reach a budget deficit in of 6% in 2009, and 20% in 2010, according to the report.

All of these predictions are based on an uncertain future for Iraq. Government spending may not rise drastically, but any collapse of security could send the oil firms running and revenue plummeting.

As global market conditions limit investment and multinationals shy away from risky propositions, Iraq will be the first to suffer. So in addition to the moral responsibility of the U.S., its Allies and Iraq’s Arab neighbours to stay the course, market principles further support this proposition.