The End of the Previous Rant (but read this first)

But then I realized a deeper implication to some of the things I always say about the War in Iraq -- on how it is a war for oil-- and we cannot leave Iraq until we solve the energy crisis.

I realized Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were fighting a war for 3 1/2 years --- from March 2003 through November 2006 -- solely as a vehicle to direct American government money into the hands of private Republican contractors. George Bush went along with that plan, and the Republican Congress went along with that plan.

The Senate, especially John McCain -- was in a position to stop this -- was at least in the position to call a hearing. They refused. John McCain, whose entire career was based on his bravery in the face of torture, folded his tent rather than protect other people from going through what he went through. John McCain enabled the Military Commissions Act. He had a chance to be a great political leader.

Contrary to what you sometimes hear listening to Republicans, we live in a democracy, not a monarchy. You can be a great political leader, and not be the Preisdent of the United States. John McCain failed. I wouldn't vote for John McCain to do or be anything anymore.

Only after the Democrats won the Election in 2006 did President Bush finally decide to get more serious about his own war. Strangely enough, if the Republicans won the election there would have been no surge. We would have just hobbled along for another year -- more soldiers being ground up simply to make money for the Bernie Keriks of this world. And the Republicans -- the Deadbeat Daddy party -- would have just looked away.

It's really the pressure that the Democrats brought to bear to end the War that forced Bush to behave like an adult towards his own, now redefined, War.

So if Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are looking for an accomplishment for their 2007 of failure, they can point to the temporary success in the War in Iraq.

I don't expect the Democrats to thank me for my insight any time soon.

(As a footnote, the Democrats should have spent more time in 2007 on the business of clean government -- on military procurement scandals, on how Scooter Libby came to spend less time in jail than Lindsey Lohan, on the U.S. Attorney situation, on the Veterans Hospitals, on why the bridges are falling, on why the Administration is getting away with using the Scooter Libby playbook, again, on the most recent decision to destroy the CIA tapes. None of these things have the sex appeal of lets say, whether Roger Clemens took steroids in his never-ending attempt to provide harmless diversion for his fans. All these Senators and Congressmen wail as if they are powerless in the face of the George Bush/ Rush Limbaugh power shield. Maybe if Congress just keeps grinding, kept grinding at the old boring job that they begged the voters to give them. Maybe then some truth will come out.)

In my war in the Middle East (one of the 200,000,000 or so Wars being fought in the minds of American people who are trying to figure out what the real War is about), each passing month makes me happier that we went to the Middle East, and more despondent that we will ever reach a peaceful solution.

We cannot leave until we solve the energy crisis. An accord between the Shia and the Sunnis and the Kurds will not allow us to leave. The death of Osama bin Laden and the demise of Al Qaeda will not allow us to leave. Eternal Peace in Israel will not allow us to leave. The destruction of the Syrian, Iranian and Pakistani nuclear arms program by General Petraeus his own self will not allow us to leave. Each country in the Middle East enacting the United States Constitution word-for-word and then living under these Constitutions peacefully will not allow us to leave. A world devoid of terrorism will not allow us to leave.

Only a solution to the energy crisis will allow us to leave. If we leave before the energy crisis is solved, some other country will come into the Middle East to protect its own vital interests. If the United States was not in the Middle East before 2007, we would have had to have gone into the Middle East this year if only to make sure that the oil flow continued.

The energy crisis will be solved, it will be solved soon. The country that solves the crisis -- with a cheap, green source of energy -- will likely be the world's great power for a good part of the 21st century. That country could be the United States. It should be the United States. However, there is little on the current political/business spectrum to indicate that we are willing to solve the energy crisis.

Only a solution to the energy crisis will allow the United States to leave the Middle East. However, if some other country solves the energy crisis, our victory in the Middle East will be like England's victory in World War II -- the beginning of the end -- the passing of the baton to some other nation -- to some other less free, less tolerant nation.