Mess O'Potamia

(And with apologies to Jon Stewart for borrowing his pun . . .)

I am in serious curmudgeon mode today, it seems. I have had the exceedingly politically incorrect thought that what we really ought to do about the Middle East is this: we should sneak in and disarm/steal all the nukes on both sides (for our own protection), and then get out completely. Let the Arabs and Israelis fight it out amongst themselves until no one is left standing.

That's what they really want to do, anyway, it seems. We are never going to have lasting peace in the Middle East until the people there realize that revenge is NOT sound political policy. So far, for more than 7,000 years, that hasn't occurred to many people there, and I doubt it will become a popular concept there any time soon.

So let them kill each other off. Without nukes, no one there can destroy or even set off the rest of the world to destroy itself . . . if they can't learn to play nice, the heck with them.

Now, I know this is totally unrealistic. For one thing, it would be impossible for us to go in and safely take out all the nukes lurking around; for another, it's a terrible abrogation of our responsibility as a leader of the so-called Free World to help others (who want our help) to live in peace and some semblance of security.

But we can't just spank their bottoms and send them to Time Out in the corner, now, can we?

And there is no good solution without changing the fundamental mindset of both sides. Until they all learn that revenge is not the way, there's no hope for lasting peace.

Besides, our attempts to "help," like by invading Iraq, haven't done much except tip the balance of power to the more extreme Arabs in other countries like Syria . . . and Iran. So we're probably making things worse overall, not better.

It has been wisely noted that politics is the art of the possible. So far, Middle East peace seems impossible. And this is why I am not ever running for public office. I know what I'd like to say and to do, and I know what I'd be able to say and to do. There's no overlap.

The ultimate lesson is this: Ronald Reagan's push to end the Cold War is going to go down in history as Not A Good Thing. For, whether you liked the USSR or hated the USSR, you have to admit that the USSR was able to keep a lid on the Arab/Islamist fundamentalists and their desire to destroy the world if they couldn't have their own way. [I note this last in light of Hezbollah's stated desire to start WWIII.--Ed]

Better the enemy you know than the enemy you don't know. Better the enemy who understands certain basic concepts (such as "we are all on this Earth together, and we have to learn to live with one another even if we don't like one another, if we ourselves are to survive") than the enemy who couldn't give a damn about anything but glorious martyrdom and immolation.

I never used to want to die, ever, because I always wanted to see how everything turned out. [Yes, I sometimes read the last page of a novel first.--Ed] But I am beginning to think I no longer want to know.

Will someone please explain to me what the heck is so wrong with "live and let live"?