Drained of talent like Charles Frenette, a highly regarded head of European operations who quit in August, and Jack L. Stahl, a well-liked company veteran who served as president and second-in-command and was stripped of his authority last March, Coke is run by has-beens and relatively recent hires.

FORBES: Gone Flat

But Iraq suffers from one major disadvantage: it has been run, like the former Soviet Union, as a command-and-control economy.

BBC: Iraq war 'will hit Mid-East growth'