Should Iraq Pay For Its Own Reconstruction?

Iraq is sitting on a bunch of oil which is worth quite a lot these days. This has prompted Senators Carl Levin (D - Michigan) and John Warner (R - Virginia) to ask, "Where's the money?" Estimates are that Iraq will earn at least $100 million because of oil for 2007 and 2008 combined. To date, we've spend around $47 billion trying to reconstruct Iraq. Iraq can't even figure out how to spend the $10.1 billion it has allocated for reconstruction.

Is it fair to require Iraq to spend on its own reconstruction or will this just create resentment like in the post-Civil War South?

How can we enforce the requirements we've put on Iraq? On the one hand, if we say, "Do this by X date or we will leave," we've given the terrorists a timetable. We've told them that all they have to do is create enough havoc until that date. On the other hand, if we don't somehow enforce it, then we give the Iraqi government no incentive to not have us foot the bill.

I honestly believe that there are people in Iraq that want to be free, but does Iraq as a country really want to be free? Is this just a case of being under a dictator for so long that it takes a while to get the concept of freedom like post-Soviet Russia?

I believe that we want Iraq to be stable. I believe that if we leave now, we'll have sent a message that the terrorists won and we'll just have to redo what we've done before. That being said, if Iraq wants a ruler, I'm not sure I like the idea of having the U.S. holding Iraq as a territory, at least from a PR standpoint.