Middle East Marshall Plan

I posted over at WatchBlog in the Republican & Conservative forum about the need for a modern day Marshall Plan (MP) for the ME. What the MP boiled down to was an exclusive economical contract between the US and the European countries that took part (Russia was offered but declined). There was of course some requirements of the participants.

The United States offered up to $20 billion for relief, but only if the European nations could get together and draw up a rational plan on how they would use the aid. For the first time, they would have to act as a single economic unit; they would have to cooperate with each other.

The situation is not exactly the same of course. Europe was destitute and broken in so many ways. The US gave them around 13 billion dollars up to 1953 on the requirement they bought their good from the US.

The Marshall Plan, it should be noted, benefited the American economy as well.
The money would be used to buy goods from the United States, and they had to be shipped across the Atlantic on American merchant vessels.

With Iraq and Afghanistan the situation is not exactly the same. Iraq has the ability to produce and money making product and has already started but hasn’t gotten there yet. Afghanistan’s major export is drugs and that has to change.

So what could a ME Marshall Plan look like? First of all it has to be formal and for the world to see. It has to be enacted through Congress and participation is by choice. A complete renouncing of terrorism is an obvious requirement. Since it is an economic agreement, there has to be a contract for exclusive supplier and purchaser of goods between the countries. I say countries because all participates would essentially be creating a temporary and exclusive micro economy. For example let say that Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan agreed to join the US in a partnership. Iraq would be able to sell oil only to those four countries at market value. At first those countries would be buying a lot of goods from the US, but of course they would also be receiving aid to cover those costs. As their economies grow and become self sufficient, the countries may opt out or become a strong partner in the micro economy.
Unlike the original MP, there would be a military aspect to it also. This would in the spirit of NATO (which isn’t a perfect entity but it has done the job of stopping war in Europe). At first it would be heavily dominated by the US, but as training of other participating countries improved then the US’s role would decrease (Something that didn’t fully happen with NATO). Any military bases in the area would not be owned by the US but would be used as joint effort.

Another requirement would be that this would only be offered to countries that have some form of Democracy. This would be a big stumbling block for several countries but in the long run, having a large block of successful Democratic countries would be a huge influence to others.

One of the side effects would be ME version of the Cold War that would probably be closer to a Luke Warm War.

This just a pondering of single man in front of a computer so I am sure I have understate several thing, over simplified others and gotten many other just plain wrong but I still believe a overall strategy needs to be developed, enacted and put in front of the world.