…and I’m not talking California. Someone was telling me the other day how it was a mistake that we haven’t been paying off the Sunni tribes. That apparently is going to change. Here is what the almost-always-excellent Jim Hoagland wrote about it yesterday:

“The occupation authorities also see hope in a new effort to give tribes in the Sunni heartland a stake in protecting oil pipelines and other facilities from sabotage.

These authorities now understand much better the system of rewards and punishments that the Baathist regime used to keep these tribes loyal. For one thing, the tribes were given regular payments if the pipelines in their territories encountered no problems. Sabotage or other security problems in a tribe’s area brought an immediate cutoff of those payments from Baghdad.

The protection funds ceased with the invasion — and sabotage suddenly erupted. Now payments to the tribes are being restored by CPA officials, who are silently testing the theory that Sunni sheiks looking for a renewal of their customary meal ticket may have been negligent about, if not responsible for, damage to the national pipeline system. Paid town councils are also being established in Sunni areas and warned that salaries will stop if there are security problems in their jurisdictions.

Shocked at this accommodation of a protection racket? I’m prepared to hold the outrage.”