The Middle east, middle America, and another Iraqi election.

My home, California, has at least one thing in common with Iraq: we both have elections with alarming frequency. Iraq had another one this week. I commend it. As a liberal who deeply opposes this war on moral, patriotic, and policy grounds (and just about any other grounds you can think of) I am still heartened by citizens going to vote. And for all the B.S. Bush has fed us about his reasons for his war, I will say this: forcing elections is an improvement over the way we controlled regions when the Soviets were the monsters on the horizon - assassinate or invade then set up the goon we like in the Presidential Palace.
Nevertheless, these Iraqi elections are beginning to feel like Ground Hog's Day - a loop of speeches by the American President, followed by hopeful pictures of things "going better than expected", widespread acclaim of the patriots who voted ( how many will be in the gallery for the State of the Union speech this year?)- then infighting, kidnapping, bombs, and the loop ends with the next "benchmark" being promoted and anticipated as the one in which we turn the corner.

Fine. I hope this election in Iraq does the trick. Maybe we can sweep into Iraq and graft a Jeffersonian Democracy on to our client. I find it laughable. But I am willing to be wrong. It seems likely that Bush believes his mission is just and true. He is not a stupid man, just a shallow man. But Cheney and Rumsfeld almost certainly do not buy this line. They created, packaged, and sold this war for very good reasons. Reasons Americans will not, and probably cannot, accept. We must have oil. We must have a hand in controlling the oil that is left in the world. That oil is not in Middle America. It is in the Middle East. The "Syrianna" thesis is the closest to the truth about this war. Either we can control the oil, or China can. Can any of us handle this truth? We are not fighting a "war on terror". We have begun the twilight struggle with China. Radical Islam is a consequence, not a cause.

If we continue to depend on oil the consequences are almost transparent and available for viewing most days on CNN. War dead, radicalized suicide bombers, encroaching and panicked government, energy prices that fluxuate widely, and yes- hurricane seasons as long as baseball seasons. This is all about our use of oil and where that oil comes from.
I am antiwar. Or at least anti-Iraq war. That means, in no uncertain terms, that I must also be anti-oil dependency. If we still want to live in what James Kuntsler calls the "Happy motoring society" then we must accept the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld war for what it is: a consequence of our choices.

If another consequence is a functional democracy in Iraq: good for them, and good for us. And if that, in turn, keeps the oil flowing West instead of East, then: good for us - at least until hurricane season.