• Obama’s Not So Private Economic Conundrum

Having effectively been elected by a population believing in his redistribution of wealth promises, Obama has leaped into the fray of a game in which he has no experience. He arrived with an ideology, and seems to have learned little about the recession facing the Nation. Still he charges ahead. Along with millions of fawning supporters, Wall Street is quietly cheering and encouraging the moves of a neophyte CEO. You would too, if you controlled the game.

Many pundits and most of the mainstream media have intellectualized a rationality for the President’s actions with an unconvincing, “he’s a smart guy, he knows what he’s doing” or the very successful assignation, “the mess is Bush’s fault.” Others who once supported him now have stepped back a little with an abundance of “time will tell, give him some time,” brace-yourself sentiments. The American voters re-elected Bush to a rare second term, so this blames the voters, but more critically it is a disingenuous condemnation.

The anti-capitalism wave that swept the nation and elected Obama was a reaction to the financial sector’s abuse of influence and power. Within the reach of a compliant and not so watchful Congress, some players took absurd risks across the banking spectrum, breaking all rules of reasonable lending practices and leveraging. As Obama continues the out of control bailout of the financial services industry program Bush started, the problem America has faced for the past decade and continues to be saddled with, is the dearth of knowledge on the part of its President pertaining to its most critical challenge.

Any CEO who is perplexed when facing a balance sheet is incapable of effectively managing a large corporation, particularly one passing through a very turbulent and economically treacherous period. In such times, having in place an independent and objective Board of Directors is imperative, even if the CEO is aware. In the President’s case, Congress is expected to act as a balanced and diligent chamber, not an anesthetized rubber-stamping convocation. Both Republican and Democrats in Congress can take blame for having succumbed to the seduction of money, which led them to ignore the bubbles (housing and financial) that have imploded with worldwide ramifications. Congressionally mandated liberal (read: Standardless) mortgage qualifications, coupled with Greenspan’s loose money policies were the fuel that energized the bubbles. Bush was not responsible for the financial meltdown, and neither is Obama, although both can be accused of complacency. However, …

When the markets caved, Bush was in over his head facing challenges he did not understand, and he handed the hot potato to Paulson. Apparently Bush believed that a fox is the only one who has experience with chickens, and is therefore their inevitable overseer. It was evident that Bush had already vacated the White House premises mentally, and was running south for cover, hoping Obama would take over the reigns even before his time. In came Obama, with no more intimate knowledge, perhaps less, of the economic landscape and Wall Street than his predecessor. What did he do? Installed Paulson’s buddy and protégé of sorts to continue the good work of bailing out the financial community. Unfortunately for the taxpayers, Obama will continue to do whatever he is told to do.

At least Bush didn’t pretend he knew what he was doing. Obama’s ego on the other hand refuses to allow for such leak of doubt even in his private moments with the mirror. He is confident, and believes that he is intelligent, but the arrogance is leading him, and the Nation, overzealously into trouble. Problem is, the nation will pay for his ego and his lack of analysis or interest in educating himself.

As I’ve suggested previously he should shut the door of the Oval Office for a month, stay off Air Force One, and get a concentrated dose of education on the biggest challenges. He won’t. If America’s financial house is in order, every other challenge facing the country will be more easily remedied. It deserves his attention and intimate understanding of subtleties. A few phone calls will roundup all the teaching talent he can use. The objective is not to transform him into an economist. That would be just as disastrous. The goal it to get the CEO to become aware of what he doesn’t know, and get a grasp on some right questions to ask those that he has delegated authority to.

The U.S. Treasury and The Fed deserve his attention though they don’t want it. Who wants meddling when you’ve got yourself a key to the vault? They are happy to work with someone who doesn’t know enough to probe effectively with relevant examinations. They have been content for over a generation with residents of the White House who did not know what they didn’t know. Their jobs were made so much easier. Clinton might be the only President in recent memory who might have come close to being analytical and inquisitive. Have we so soon forgotten Allan Greenspan’s endless tenure and obscure meanderings who propelled the money markets over the edge? Why has Geithner’s failed role at the New York Fed garnered him ultimate power in the new Administration? Simple. His boss doesn’t know any different.

The occasionally heard rationalization, “we need those who brought us this mess to help clean it up,” is actually touted as if it made sense. … Not to American taxpayers, it doesn’t. With the bobbing head of the President, those who manipulated the fashioning of the worldwide recession are now tapping into the taxpayer pockets with schemes that will eventually surface, but to no avail. There will be no repercussions because there is no elected official who knows enough to dig, or has competence enough to conduct even superfluous due diligence.

When, for example, will taxpayers ever be apprized of the realities that will have allowed banks to market packaged toxic assets to funds, with the taxpayers, through the deft fingers of Geithner, guaranteeing the losses? ... The funds being pools of capital formed in partnership with Treasury where the taxpayer is fifty percent partner. Yes, you, the taxpayer will be a 50/50 partner, and that’s not good news because you are also the backstop on any losses incurred. Losses will represent much of the packages because we’re talking about mortgage loans that have been under water for some time and worse, these wondrous financial baskets include miasmal securities that were created by the geniuses running these now thrashed financial institutions. The outside independent fund “partners” have you to thank for their lack of risk. Don’t hold your breath waiting for transparency from Geithner. Geithner’s buddies will continue to be bailed, make billions, replenish their coffers, and taxpayers won’t know the hows, whens or whats. Ever. If you think you have a few bucks to invest, and want to get in on this action, good luck.

The big lie was that such radical measures were necessary if big lenders were ever going to lend again. Think about the absurdity of that statement. Your corner lemonade stand entrepreneur knows better than that. Oh, and the other sensible reason was that these giants of the financial world required their lost capital replenished. So, in go the taxpayers, threatened and squeezed into recapitalizing incompetent banks by overpaying for assets, … well, not assets so much as worthless toxic waste.

Thousands of banks across the country with solid financial statements could easily have been provided government backing to loosen some cash for loans, with deals and conditions pre-negotiated, etc., etc., etc., we could go on and on. The Geithners around him, by the way, could care less what Obama does with headaches like GM, Chrysler etc., so he plays pretend capitalist flexing his newfound CEO muscles, guided by an irresistible ideological need to change the rules of capitalism, another game far beyond his capacities and experience. He now seems to be an expert in the desires of the American public, which is apparently clamoring for electric automobiles, but is evidently doing it very silently.

The Administration’s bungling of the GM restructuring completely extinguished any possibilities of renegotiating the repressive union contracts that weighed heavily in the collapse of the auto industry. Obama’s support of unions, and his indulgence of their quid pro quo expectations will have detrimental effect on the taxpayer investment in GM. Obama is adding a whole new level of risk to investments – political risk. With GM and Chrysler as examples of overzealous government intrusion, and being very indicative of the overall climate in Washington, unionized companies and those encumbered with legacy liabilities, can expect to encounter serious difficulties raising capital in the foreseeable future. Unions have an important role to play in the economy, however, overstepping bounds of reason is detrimental to the “host.” The free market system needs oversight, however, Obama is taking the concept of oversight a little too personally, and his insinuation of government into the free market system is exceeding all constitutional expectations.

Meanwhile middle America awaits a positive outcome from its new President’s policies. It holds fervent hope that things will work out, and his wealth redistribution will magically trickle down to better jobs and higher incomes.

The money game and Wall Street are influenced by major players who never write tell-all books. There is no conspiracy, but there IS a game. Even Geithners are pawns in the game, but they play just the same. The vast independent pools of capital circling the globe, are directed by astute, quiet, effective and ruthless administrators. If you influenced the management of $500 billion and more, would you leave the investments to the vagaries and whims of markets? Would you risk the capital? Absolutely not. You would influence, and manage as much of the game as possible to achieve your objectives. You would do what you have to do to preserve capital first, and maximize returns second, to whatever extent possible, as would any mid sized, or small fund, or even minor investor.

As for Bushes and Obamas? They don’t know there is a game. Ideology is blinding, and with arrogance stirred in, the clustered aggregate, marketed and sold with masterful dexterity, will be detrimental to a whole nation’s economic well-being.

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• Is Obama Right To Ignore Bush Transgressions?

President Bush has cloaked his term in the White House with a singular distinction of secrecy that would give Richard Nixon a case of acute envy. President Elect Obama has just indicated that he does not want to be, “looking backwards.” Is this an appropriate deflection for an incoming administration?

The eight-year imperial Presidency that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have enjoyed, has been one long sequence of questionable and unexplained, but massively expensive events. Taxpayers have been patient as they watched an administration mislead them into a war whose astronomical costs may never be audited, and through which much questionable siphoning of cash has been deftly executed. Bush and Cheney friends, along with their companies including Halliburton Co. were seen to be taking advantage of hundreds of thousands of contracts. Taxpayers were not surprised when Halliburton’s Chairman announced he was moving headquarters offshore to Dubai. The endless fomenting suspicions were not appeased, they were irritated. Repeatedly, questionable corporate ethics were given a pass.

Obscene pictures taken in a prison they had never heard of also confused Americans. They were further conflicted in how they should feel with the detention of prisoners in Guantanamo, held indefinitely without due process. The discomfort was not really for the prisoners, but was due to a certain malaise stirring in the knowledge that while laws provide us protection against imprisonment without at least having had the benefit of due process, the Administration had managed to somehow circumvent the rules. Who might be next?

America was provided detailed explanations on the extraction of information from extrajudicial prisoners, through a particularly aggressive method, and “waterboarding” joined the English language. We have more recently wondered about the extent to which spying on our lives has actually occurred. Although we have moved through anxiety regarding terrorism, and then passed into annoyance on the invasion of our privacy, we are now slipping into a tunnel of suspicion that government attitude has shifted to an assumption that everyone is suspect until proven otherwise.

The Iraq war, the Iraqi reconstruction, and the countless available accesses to financial abuse and corruption, continue to make headlines. These reports do not exhaust our patience as much as they might have done prior to the current financial crisis overtaking our lives. The bombardment of bad news has to be prioritized. A $15 trillion debt trench has been dug by corporate and political mismanagement, with enabling help from very suspicious Congressional oversight.

Whatever Obama’s motives for not being emphatic or specific on digging out any wrong doing, the decision appears to be the right path for him to take, and his Presidency can be given a pass on this one. The problem is deep and wide, but it is not his. This conundrum is endemic across too many levels of the system from the White House to the Capitol, from the Pentagon to Wall Street, and from Iraq to Dubai. Taxpayers will have to pressure their elected Congress and the hired bureaucracy to deal vigorously with those who have trampled on laws, if accordant evidence of wrongdoing surfaces. The current administration and legislature cannot be given a pass. The country does not need a witch hunt, however, taxpayer outrage deserves a relief valve and the American Democracy can withstand the heat.

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• Obama - The Second Tell

As follow-up to a November 21, ’08 article on this post regarding signs that may reveal the direction that an Obama Presidency might take, the following presents another “tell.” This one is less innocuous, but may prove to be more expensive to America.

Perceptions inside the current White House, when Bush and Cheney took office, were that incurring debt was its right and was its political capital to spend with Cheney supposedly claiming “deficits don’t matter.” Hindsight was temporarily kind to them with support from William Niskanen, a member of Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors also claiming, “The lesson we should have learned is that deficits have little or no short-term economic impacts.”

Through the early years of this decade, everyone accepted the premise that debt was a normal, perhaps integral conveyance of a modern society, possibly even an applauded one. From economists to taxpayers on assembly lines, everyone dwelled in the comfort that deficits and borrowing could bring unfathomable respect from acquisition of material possessions. Second mortgages were objects of desire and their procurements were cause for boasting. And didn’t second cars and gigantic cinema sized TV screens provide jobs for people in foreign lands anyway? Who could possibly argue with success?

Debt administered through spinal shunts delivered energy into the U.S. economy. The amphetamine rush sent economic experts into undiluted delusions of grandeur, and the exploiters into creative overdrive on derivative concoctions too complex for their corruption and decomposition to be diagnosed. Somewhere along the delivery track, the drug magically transformed into analgesic and the rest of society, including government, slid into either acceptance or compliance. Some sectors of government abdicated responsibility, when their persuasion to appear oblivious was finessed with financial seduction.

Debt is seductive. Its power is evidently overpowering. America is anxious to move on beyond the current administration and is anticipating a new President with promises of change. We listen for signs of that impending change, and so here is the Second Tell. During this past weekend President Elect Obama, while making promises of unprecedented public works projects, stated, “We've got to provide a blood infusion. And that means we can't worry short-term about the deficit." At least Obama’s delivery of attitude toward economic probity was less arrogant than Bush and Cheney’s, but identical in its bearing. He seems more genuine, even if misguided. The legal debt ceiling has already been increased to $11.3 trillion and more increases will be requested.

Evidently not so much has changed or will change, and deficits be damned, full steam ahead with borrowing and government intervention. An additionally disconcerting sense is felt when accepting the reality of the notion that even bigger government may not be just an enigmatic abstraction over the coming four years.

A preceding article on this post discussed the need of the 44th President to urgently obtain an intensive and thorough education on inflation. With the coming boom in currency creation, not doing so would be tantamount to an abdication of responsibility.

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• TRIGGER FOR A CHENEY PRESIDENTIAL PARDON?

We read the headline on a story buried deep on a back page related to Texas indictments on Vice President Dick Cheney, and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, but we don’t bother reading further. What’s the point? Surely it’s related to Guantanamo Bay, or some other absurdity these guys were involved in. It did not make the front cover, so how momentous can it be? The story appears to be about prisons, or prisoners, or something else that won’t affect us much, so who cares? Things are rarely as they appear.

On closer analysis, we are offered a view of the bizarre circus that is often performed by the Texas judicial system. That is not bewildering, since the performance of many magisterial infrastructures on this continent are desperately wanting, and the Texas judiciary rarely provides a surprise. The indictment of a sitting Vice President of the United States, however, should be international front-page news, and deserves dissection with all the skepticism that CSI Miami’s labs might percolate into truth. Alas, no such disposition is demonstrated on this case, yet even for modest entertainment, the incident deserves attention.

It may be impossible to discern if this collision of hapless dominos being played in a judicial game of Texas law, is simply a Universal coincidence when all astrological forces have merged to favor the Bush Administration, or if it is an outcome of the current White House hard at work on its end game.

The endless rambling road of predictions and conjecture is littered with decimated egos, yet on this one, can we help ourselves? The opportunity is too appetizing to pass up. This spectacle in Texas, fields a cast of characters too reminiscent of the Keystone Cops, to be either funny, or an aberration. And no, this isn’t a conspiracy theory revelation, but how good can a story get?

Cheney is accused of conflict of interest because he owns substantial holdings in the Vanguard Group, which invests in private prisons, while he holds influence over the Willacy County’s federal immigrant detention center. He is also accused of misdemeanor assaults on detainees because of that ownership link. In the litany of errant decisions suspected of Cheney, nailing him with a misdemeanor does not ignite much interest, and would not even make any list of top ten transgressions. This misdemeanor would also not find much traction in most courts, yet there it stands.

Gonzales on the other hand is accused of terminating an investigation into abuses at a federal detention center in the county. Gonzales demonstrated little propensity for recollection of anything when Congress questioned him on events within his own office. How can anyone possibly believe that he might successfully be linked to events inside a Texas detention center, while he fumbled around Washington? Perhaps someone is finally crediting Gonzales of having talent.

We suspect that Cheney and Gonzales are not losing much sleep from anxiety over this affair. Neither the accused, nor the District Attorney showed up for arraignments. The D. A. was found camping outside the courthouse with a horse, 3 goats and a rooster, and clerks, judges and prosecutors related to the case are separately being indicted on charges of abuse. They are furthermore embroiled in other debilitating peculiarities, laying a cloak of dubious lineage on an already questionable judicial exercise.

So how bizarre is this game? Perhaps not bizarre at all. The timing is impeccable and the players appear perfectly suited for the performances of their lives. Burlesque or not, they may be celebrated for years to come at a now famous ranch in Crawford, Texas, and might be deserving of a badge of excellence.

For all those who have reported, with a certain glee, on the charges against the intensely disliked Vice President’s potential humiliation, don’t dive into your bath of triumph with too fervent exhilaration. You may be gawking at a perfect scenario for George W. Bush to erect a Chinese Wall around himself.

As Bush exits the most powerful office in the world, but before welcoming the 44th. President, he will dispense Presidential pardons with sanguine indifference to perceptions. He can do so even before any trial is concluded. What a perfect, non-descript, development, and excuse for a blanket absolution of his Vice President from exposure to flack flying from any and all activities, or decisions. Gonzales is just an additional moat of protection for fortress Bush. Rather than wait for events to unravel after he has left office, or for other charges to be leveled at Cheney, Bush is presented a perfectly rational circumstance for exercising the power to pardon, before it evaporates completely from his grasp on January 20, 2009.

Deployment of the protective mantle to shelter the first guard of this markedly reviled President may propel Congress to revisit the practice that has been an embarrassment to the electorate in almost every instance that a Commander in Chief has left office. Presidential pardons have no place in a Democracy that honors itself with Laws.

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• WHY OBAMA WILL WIN, BUT CAN’T DELIVER

McCain embarrassingly strains at the altar of speech giving, the teleprompter, like a schoolboy forced to stand at the front of the class to explain how he spent his weekend with the family. Cut to Obama, giving a speech, anywhere, doesn’t matter where, and the contrast in presentation is peculiar given that both are running for arguably the most important office in the world. Presentation shouldn’t matter but it does. McCain’s lack of presence makes him seem weak and appear out of his element. That doesn’t mean he is weak, but he is not helping his image in the public’s consciousness.

Even in his attempts to deliver emphatic points, McCain can’t muster conviction. Middle America is feeling uncomfortable on too many fronts and that discomfiture expects some appearance of conviction in a candidate. Only conviction will lead the American taxpayer out of the economic trench currently slowing progress. Only conviction will chart a new course away from the path that for the past eight years has been led by what has become the most despised resident of the White House in the history of that seat of power.

America needs its sense of confidence back. New blood, new thinking, and new ideas will forge a road back to that feeling of confidence. Obama has been able to present such a dream. Real or not, he is the new hip kid on the block who becomes vested with the hope of a nation urgently looking for change. Deep change. Obama becomes anointed as the savior who will rebuild the nation’s current economic mess and international stature.

America is a leader, and America makes its leaders. It dreams them up. They are a product of America’s illusions and aspirations as it goes about its business of working, raising families, and enjoying or stressing about life. America injects the White House with its expectations. America also forgets that the leaders it chooses are human, often with more frailties than the average American, and the expectations are often misplaced. The last two Presidents are examples to remember. Clinton had the potential to become one of the country’s greatest, yet he lacked a profound sense of history and his frailties rendered his Presidency impotent. Bush contrasted Clinton’s intelligence and appeared to be “everyman,” presenting a clean contrast that would not soil the stature of the Oval Office. Bush rapidly devastated both the image and the economy of the country with a lack of understanding on too many elements to be delineated here. Nevertheless, on he marched with confidence that his beliefs, fervor, and convictions were absolute, and that debt financing was his earned capital to be spent. This generation’s great-great grandchildren will be paying for that earned capital.

Obama is the only candidate in whom America can inject an expectation of a refurbished sense of glory. He is a blank canvas that America needs to inject with its anxious anticipation of a positive tomorrow. The actualization of Obama fulfilling expectations, his own or America’s, is an unlikely eventuality. He has set his own bar impossibly low, since he has refrained from making firm and definitive commitments, and has a record of abstaining from making difficult decisions in his short life as a sitting politician. Obama’s backpedaling on Iraq, for example, and announcing that he doesn’t plan on rushing out of the war, further blurs the lines that differentiate him from the competition. We understand. He's running for office and needs to stay neutral and polished, ... however, where's the passion for something specific? Where are the principles?

Bush has pushed America into a corner from whence it expects to be led toward lighter days. The new and overwhelming expectations are foisted on another human being with all the limitations and baggage we would rather not notice. As always, the average middle income tax payer will continue to do the heavy lifting. And also as always, in that expectation, America will not be disappointed.

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• BUSH’S MISREPRESENTATION OF “NEGOTIATE”

The media pandemonium over President Bush’s Knesset remarks on the occasion of Israel’s 60th anniversary are centered on whether or not he was taking a veiled stab at Obama's approach to foreign policy. No need to debate here the Bush administration’s track record in most affairs, particularly those foreign, however, the Knesset speech highlights a fundamental lack of awareness that has been a root cause of the administration’s failures on this broad political frontier.

Obama wasted little time in taking this opportunity to arrest the attention of front page editors by firmly denouncing the speech and responding emphatically, even if the comments were not likely directed at him, but rather aimed at President Carter. Obama, better than other candidates, and assuredly better than Bush, comprehends the meaning of PR. The capacity to understand and apply the finer elements of effective PR simply seems to have long ago vacated the current administration’s methodology.

Whatever group one wishes to include under the terms “terrorist and radicals”, resurrecting Neville Chamberlain’s ghost and his appeasement of Hitler, is recollection of a situation with no resemblance or correlation to the current situation the U.S. faces with either Iran, Russia, Cuba, or any other country, or even Hamas. Negotiating is not appeasing. Negotiating accomplishes a multitude of objectives including the delineation of potentialities in the event of certain occurrences, good, bad, or extreme. That doesn’t mean the opposing party will be compliant, but at least there will be no ambiguity. Negotiations can also bring to the surface new and different perceptions, since as is often the case, when egos rear the uglier side of human nature, the public declarations can become somewhat subdued behind closed doors.

A challenge in foreign policy is to not insult a whole country and its people while publicly delivering verbal outrage at its leadership. Let’s take for example, the infamous Axis of Evil speech which placed Iran on the short list of three. Not it’s leadership, but all of Iran was slammed into the bag in one brief five second sound bite. How about speaking directly to the people of Iran, and giving them credit for being educated and aware? The majority of them don’t support or like their leadership either, but when you lump them into a bag and call the whole of the population evil, you win few friends where you need them. Diplomacy 101 would suggest another tack, which doesn’t include insulting the whole country because it’s leadership is uneducated and demented. In fact, much of the Iranian population is well educated with an 80% literacy rate, and by many casual and reported accounts, it likes America. In many instances Iranians envy its freedoms, and are probably just as puzzled at the ridiculous and absurd statements made by their President as we are. An example of such bewilderment, was that after Ahmedinejad’s rabid rhetoric against Israel, a couple of years back, that offended Jews and others around the world, his government donated funds for Tehran’s Jewish Hospital. The Iranian Jewish population, the largest Jewish population in the middle east outside Israel, was also no doubt puzzled, though probably not surprised.

The Internet is opening windows between cultures and societies wider than ever, including ours. Today’s technologies, particularly television and computers, provide our leadership direct access to populations that would, in past decades, have remained unreachable. If a head of state is going to address a foreign country, then it is not simply its leadership that needs addressing but all of its population.

Long term relationships such as those between countries, demand long term vision, and patient, effective interaction, both public and private. Such negotiating on all possible fields of engagement is not, and should not, be confused with appeasing. Ignoring, is appeasing. Saber rattling is thrusting and stabbing into the pride of leadership, and only gives rise to zealous nationalism or worse. Let’s go back to Diplomacy 101, and implement some effectual negotiating skills and measures. Isn’t America a leader in PR, marketing, and gamesmanship?

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• IRAQI OIL’S SIREN SONG

We’ll wait for George Bush to provide us some answers through an anonymous blog on why the invasion was, in his distinct vision, an overwhelmingly brilliant epiphany. Perhaps another manifestation will materialize, or perhaps veracity will prevail, and he’ll just come out and tell us. Meantime, since the momentous event, oil prices have soared a multiple of 3.5 times, billions have found their way into oil pumping and processing hands, and Iraq’s output is at only a third of what it could provide. Under the vast Iraqi sands, lay at rest what may be the globe’s largest reserves of the cheapest to extract and refine sweet crude. As Cheney calls the mission a “successful endeavor,” and the tax payers bail out another investment bank, an enormous undignified white elephant darkens American cerebration pondering that very viscous, yet beckoning, light sweet crude. Whether in the long haul trucker filling his tank, or in the graduate scrambling for her next student loan payment, minds entertain what might have been one pillar of George’s epiphany, “shouldn’t we get that oil, we’ve more than paid for it.”

On every single objective one can conjure up for the administration’s decision to invade Iraq, the outcome has had the exact diametrically opposite result. Whether it was a grand plan for hegemony, for democracy, for reducing oil prices in America, or breaking OPEC, the absolute worst desired effect took hold. Most of us aren’t predisposed to crystal ball access, nevertheless, we can all predict with some certainty that the “who knew?” methodology for answering any criticism or questions will become overused. Most Bush White House constituents and apologists attended Rumsfeld’s Course on Obfuscation and Bewilderment 101, and took notes. While the dissimulation persists, the Iraq oil question remains, unclaimed and unanswered. “Do we?” “Should we?”

“Can we?” is less significant because it only requires assessment of practicality, security and infrastructure capacity, and NOT what’s right.

Rationalizations are ample, yet not satisfying. “We liberated them from Sadam. They owe us.” Nope. They don’t, although you could argue for a moral debt and ask it be repaid in oil, but that’s not tasteful and the amount would be difficult to negotiate since it would drain Iraq of its only income for generations. How about, “we paid dearly for our democracy, you should pay for yours.” No, again. Back to how much, or arguing with, “we didn’t ask for it.” There is also the argument being floated about remaining forever until we just take enough and for long enough to be satisfied. The cost of that not so subtle approach would be more than the value of the oil extracted, . . . so no again.

So there the elephant sits. Getting bigger by the day.

Geopolitical realities being what they are, that Iraqi light sweet crude sits under Iraqi soil and no one else’s. It is Iraq’s to do with as it will, currently disorganized as it may be. Even if not another drop of oil comes out, that decision rests in the hands of a sovereign nation that is desperately seeking avenues to respect for its autonomy and peace for its neighborhoods. Plain and simple . . . the elephant shouldn’t exist.

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