I was inspired by Josh Manchester’s suggestions on how to fix Iraq. I find it fruitless to offer advice to this administration because they don’t learn or listen. But what if I were to wake up tomorrow and discover a la Freaky Friday that I was the President? What would I do?
The first thing I would do is make some nominations. I would nominate Jimmy Carter to run the Pentagon. I would nominate Bill Clinton as our ambassador to the United Nations. I would nominate Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) as Secretary of State. I would nominate Bill Bradley as our ambassador to Iraq. I would nominate Pat Lang to be Director of National Intelligence and I would let him pick the head of Central Intelligence. Once I had my national security team in place I would ask Mr. Lang to supply me with several reports. I would want to know the following:
How much freedom of action do we have with respect to our debtors? How badly can China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and other holders of U.S. debt hurt us if they decide to sell off their holdings?
How stable is the House of Saud? Can we control them? What would happen if they fell from power?
A full breakdown of likely outcomes in Iraq for every conceivable action we might take. I want to know especially about potential economic consequences, not just for the U.S. but for the global economy.
And, finally, the intelligence community’s best assessment about how to get a comprehensive peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Once I had all that information then I would make my decisions.
Here is what I would hope to do.
Israel has a peace agreement with Egypt and Jordan. We need an agreement with the Syrians. We want to peel the Syrians away from the Iranian camp and get them to sign on a treaty that recognizes Israel. The Saudis would also sign on. Whatever it takes, this would be the first priority. If we can secure Israel’s borders then we can move on to the next step, which is isolating Iran and marginalizing the violent extremists.
We will have a concurrent problem in Iraq, where we will have to deal with the civil war between the Shi’a and Sunnis. Whatever the outcome, it will have to occur without the active participation of American forces. The question is whether we should remove ourselves entirely and take no side, or whether we should align ourselves with our Sunni allies, and facilitate a Saudi counterattack on the government we have created and hoped would govern effectively. I have a bias against taking sides, but I need those intelligence reports before I can make a final decision. My greatest concern is global economic dislocation. I do not want to do anything that might lead to a second Great Depression and unleash fascism abroad or even here at home.
The United States doesn’t have any particular interest in how the Sunni/Shi’a thing plays out. Our best position would be to take the Palestinian question off the table and let the Muslim world realize the futility of making progress by engaging in sectarian warfare. The success of the Iranian revolution is still our biggest problem in the region. The Shi’a have defeated us in every confrontation since 1979, while the Sunnis have been totally ineffectual (9/11 excepted). Therefore, we need to take the oxygen out of Shi’a successes. To do this we absolutely must get a comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian question. Once that is done, the Shi’a movement will be seen as a force of instability and not as a successful anti-colonial, anti-western, anti-Zionist force.
When our primary enemy was Communism, their official atheism was a potent tool for mobilizing pious Muslim opposition. But the Saudis need to change with the times. What we need now is not fundamentalism, but the opposite. If the Saudis put as much effort into spreading a moderate form of Islam as they put into spreading Wahhabiism in Pakistan’s madrasas, then maybe we can avoid a clash of civilizations.
At the same time, if I were to wake up tomorrow as President, I would immediately push for an Apollo project to lesson our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. I’d also explore how we can eliminate our foreign debt, so we are not beholden to foreign powers (potential enemies) to run our government.
I would hope that putting a new face on our foreign policy would give us some good will to change course and get some cooperation. I don’t think I could avoid exposing the full degree of deception, propaganda, criminality, and corruption of the Bush administration. They would absolutely have to be exposed and prosecuted in order for our nation to have the necessary credibility to navigate a way forward.
Should I set up a PAC for my Presidential bid?
