The Plan II: Pull the Plug

I have dispensed with the Iraq issue in the last post -- and thank god, because it just keeps getting crazier. So far this week: no more "stay the course", timetables for Iraqis to meet goals, changing tactics but not our goals, stupid rhetoric, stupid rhetoric, stupid rhetoric (and by the way, I hope you heard that in the middle of the Khalilzad/Casey press conference to announce that the Iraqis are up to the challenge of standing on their own -- you know it -- the power went out). Thank goodness I've already spoken on the subject.

So now I can move on to National Security in general. There is an idea out there, you may have noticed, that Democrats are not credible on National Security. Bush said it today, in fact -- Democrats only want to react to attacks after they happen, not to prevent them. Now, you could argue, given that he spent almost all the time before 9/11 cutting brush in a place designed to be fully covered in brush; and given that his V-P's Terrorism Task Force never bothered to meet; and given that his record is 0 wars pre-9/11 vs. 2 wars post-9/11 -- as I say, you could argue that the same accusation could be pretty effectively levelled at him.

But that's not really where I'm going with this. Rather, I am going to suggest that Dems get good on National Security precisely by pointing out that it is we, and not Republicans, who can best prevent the next attack, because we are not in the pocket of the oil companies. It needs to be pointed out, every day, constantly, that Republicans are in bed with the enemy in the Middle East. It is ridiculous -- ridiculous -- to publicly decry the behavior of countries to whom we are on a daily basis funelling what little is left of our wealth. On this -- and possibly only on this -- I am with Thomas Friedman at the Times, who points out pretty consistently that if Americans weren't so desperate for oil, the Iranians wouldn't have carte blanche to behave like raving lunatics. As Friedman says, eliminate the market for his oil, and see how fast Ahmadinejad decides that maybe the Holocaust did happen, after all.

We need to cut these people off, stop funding their deplorable governments, and force them to a more serious bargaining table. But as long as we are dependent on their oil -- and on the prices they set by controlling supply -- we have absolutely no leverage of any credibility. I know I've joked that we're going to invade Iran -- and I do tend to think that if Iraq were going any better we might -- but we had better understand that if we do invade Iran, all the Iranians have to do is -- not to send a missile our way; it is not to firebomb our troops; it is simply to cut off the movement of oil out of the Persian Gulf, and thus to send oil over $200 a barrel, and thus to send absolutely everyone except the oil companies into the kind of economic tailspin that will render the Carter years a nostalgic dream, and will turn Hugo Chavez -- himself an America-hating nutbag -- into the crack dealer for the world, selling us oil at prices that will give him the nerve to call Bush things a lot racier than just "the devil". That's the irony of the whole Iranian nuclear threat: as things stand now, the Iranians don't even need a nuke; they just need for us not to smarten up.

We had better get it straight that we are not going to stop Muslim extremists, at least not through military action. Arab countries are going to have to stop them. And we are in no position to bargain these nations toward desirable outcomes as long as we are indebted to countries like Iran (enriching uranium), Iraq (the oil will pay for the war! oops! -- Ok, protect the oil fields first! oops!), Saudi Arabia (home to 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11), Venezuela (devil-baiting president), and -- worst of all -- Sudan, from whom we receive very little or no oil but from whom the Chinese import a lot, and we can't bully them not to, because we're in the same boat.

So, if you want to do something for your country, stop with the fossil fuels.

And, Dems might point out, alternative energies are the greatest economic opportunity of the 21st century, and we are in the middle of pissing it away. Alternative energies are exactly like the record companies and the ipod. The record companies fought digital music like it was going out of style. They wanted no part of the whole thing -- and it was inevitable that there would be digital music -- and now Apple is raking it in with the ipod and itunes, and the record companies are sitting around going, oops. My friends, it is over. There will be alternative energies. We can either import them from Europe and Japan, and slowly suffocate. Or we can design them ourselves and export them at a massive profit. This is an idea about American entrepreneurial ambition -- the way it was before we got so scared of our own shadow, so, dare I say, conservative.


Next up: I outline a plan for an American New Labor, and beg for affordable health care.