The horns of a dilemma

The big Super Tuesday primary is almost here. Strangely, Iraq seems no longer to be the front-burner issue that it was just a couple of months ago. Immigration seems to have cycled around again, health care is being discussed (though everyone, regardless of party, thinks some form of national health care is called for), and, of course, the economy. The economy isn't really demonstrably worse today than it was two months ago - after all, poor holiday spending was the result of financial uncertainty, not the cause, and real estate was already in the tank - but it certainly is what everyone is talking about.

I'll say something about Iraq. I'm no expert on foreign relations or the Middle East, though I probably have read more than the average voter. But it seems to me that, irrespective of the surge's success or failure, we are caught on the horns of a dilemma no matter what happens.

First of all, the surge is being trumpeted, at least by the president and Senator McCain, as a triumph. Deaths of the military and civilians are down, as violence seems to be less prevalent. I would like to think this represents a true change, but I fear it's simply pacification. At any rate, the surge was supposed to buy time for the Iraqi political process to work, and we haven't seen sufficient progress there at all.

There seems to me to be only two outcomes. The first is that, when we leave, whether it be 60 days or 100 years, the country devolves into sectarian violence, a bloody and violent civil war. If we have truly left, it is likely that another strongman will come along who will provide order over chaos, even if it's a Sadaam-style order. It's hard for us to believe, but people value order over choice or rights, when the alternative is daily terror and uncertainty. We actually know this; after all, we reelected George Bush. If we don't fully leave, how involved do we get in the day-to-day violence? We can't stand by and watch Sunnis kill Shiites, but interceding will put us in the middle again.

The second outcome is that Bush is right, that we bring democracy and peace to one corner of the Middle East. When this happens, I suspect the American people will expect something for our trouble. We'll expect to have first-refusal status over desirable Iraqi products, which in their case is pretty much limited to oil. Especially as prices continue to increase, we'll expect our new democratic friends to cut us some really good deals.

But we're also bringing free-market capitalism to Iraq. And China and India are desperate to build their economies on the back of petroleum, just as we did. Iraq will almost certainly sell their oil to the highest bidder, and we won't be in any position to object.

At that point, what do the American people do? We have had problems with our friends in Israel, in large part due to their spying on us. What would appear to be a rock-solid relationship has been strained by these incidents. How will we feel when our glorious allies in Iraq sell our life-blood to someone else, simply to make a few more bucks?