Jan. 19, 2007
The Bogus Economist
The Speech

In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon nominated G. Harold Carswell to a position on the Supreme Court of the United States. Now Mr. Carswell, by all accounts, was a nice man, but his credentials for the highest court in the land ranked somewhere between Harriet Miers and an eggplant. Up rose Senator Roman Hruska of Nebraska with what may go down as the strongest support for mediocrity in U.S. history. Here's what Senator Hruska said:: "Even if he (Carswell) was mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance? We can't have all Brandeises and Cardozos and Frankfurters and stuff like that there."

I thought of this after President Bush's speech outlining his brand new strategy in Iraq, which seems exactly like the old one except for costing more money and requiring more soldiers. There were dozens of ex-generals and admirals interviewed on their reactions to the speech, but nobody - not one person - asked for my opinion. I object. In keeping with the Hruska argument, since there are a lot of people with less military experience, shouldn't they be able to hear the views of a man who rose through the ranks to Airman Second Class after washing out of the Aviation Cadet program due to his getting lost over his own air base - none other than the Bogus Economist himself?

As it happens, I have some excellent observations on the PresidentÕs design for bringing democracy to the Middle East, most of which I learned in fourth and fifth grade. The reason I picked fourth and fifth grade is the lesson was painful and permanent.

What I learned was when two people are in a fight and you try to separate them by getting in the middle, you will sustain damage. When the two people fighting are related, it gets much worse since they will both turn on you. Noses are broken this way.

Although the Sunni and Shia factions in Iraq differ widely in their views, they are both Muslim and both Iraqi. Even though the modern country of Iraq is young, having been formed in 1932, old Iraq - Mesopotamia - is among the oldest countries in the world. Down deep, there is a brotherhood in Iraq that resents outside interference.

Despite repeated pronouncements by people who turned out to be absolutely wrong, Iraqis do not love us. When we invaded their country to get rid of one of many dictators in the world, but one of the few whose countries contained huge oil reserves, lots of Iraqis cheered us on. But when we chose to protect the oil wells while the museums got cleaned out by looters, some began to have doubts. These were seized upon by the Sunnis, who were Papa Saddam's pets, as an excuse to start a rumble with the Shia, who were now in the driver's seat.

Right about then would have been a good time to rethink our strategy, but that didn't happen. Iran, being Shia, was a longtime enemy of Saddam (Sunni) and promptly started all kinds of mischief to promote a civil war, hoping Uncle Sam would stick around long enough to get caught in the middle of it. He did. Things went downhill from there.

What this is leading up to is my honest reaction to President BushÕs speech - IT WON'T WORK.

When two brothers are battling, the only thing to do is to stay out of it. We've heard Saudi Arabia (Shia) say they'll back their people in Iraq if the United States leaves. It's reasonable to expect Syria (Sunni) to do the same. Iran (Shia) won't just sit there twiddling its thumbs and Egypt (Sunni) might try to become the dominant force in the region by flexing its muscles, too. Turkey might interefere to protect the Kurds.

This means if we pull out, there may be hell to pay, but there won't be Americans caught in the middle of it. As far as having to go back in later, as Sen. John McCain warns, why would we have to go back in at all if we could eliminate our dependence on foreign oil?

This war in Iraq is costing us, in addition to untold human suffering, two billion dollars a week. This should be enough to establish a crash program that would make us energy independent in a reasonable time. To be sure, it might upset the petroleum industry and perhaps disturb the people urging us to drive bigger and costlier vehicles, but it would restore our pride as a self-sustained nation.

We've been involved in the Middle East for decades. We've sent arms to Iran under President Reagan and arms to Iraq under Clinton and the Bushes. We've tried to overthrow governments in Egypt, Iran, Lybia and Algeria. We've backed some of the nastiest dictators in the world (the Shah of Iran, for one) to safeguard "American interests." Maybe it's time for us to cool it.

And, if in the future we see a couple of brothers beating the daylights out of each other, we should call their parents.

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The Bogus Economist (c) 2007