Iraq Achieves Human Rights Milestone with Equal Opportunity Corruption

Post-2003 Iraq has weathered its share of challenges, from the American occupation to ISIS. It has also acquired a reputation for corruption, dysfunction, money laundering, staggering inequality, and persistent hardship. Some have even nostalgically called for Saddam Hussein's return; local commentators have reportedly urged him to emerge from his exile in Jordan, proclaiming presidential palace ready.

But perhaps unremarked upon is a rare level of equity achieved for the Iraqi people* across sectarian lines. For those occupying the ruling classes, privilege is distributed with admirable impartiality. No piece of legislation did more to cement this spirit of inclusivity than the De-Ba'athification Law.

In effect, it purged the Ba'ath Party, then any and all resources necessary for an upper tax bracket’s extravagance: gold, cash, cars, watches, perfumes, and flat-screen TVs. 

Then came the factories, workshops, shops, farmland, crops, water, electricity, oil, goats, vegetables, fruit, weeds, compost, topsoil, housing, redistributed according to the republic's only consistently enforced principle: first come, first served.

By "the Iraqi people," we mean every Iraqi who didn't make off with everything they could carry when the opportunity presented itself.