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September 21, 2000

ESSAY Over Saddam's Barrel By WILLIAM SAFIRE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Related Articles  Op-Ed Columns Archive

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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ASHINGTON - Nervous Nellie is worried about the strike by gas-gouged truckers in France and the panic buying of petrol by drivers in Britain. Nellie's fears are compounded by the rising price of gasoline in the U.S.

Be calm, replies Rosie Scenario. The tripling of the price of oil to $35 a barrel will soon be rolled back by increased production from our sensible friends in OPEC.

Nervous Nellie presses: What if Saddam Hussein crosses everybody up and reduces his sale of almost three million barrels a day, thereby punishing the West by pushing prices even higher?

That would be foolish of him, Rosie replies. Turning off the spigot would further impoverish the Iraqi people.

But that never bothered him before, counters Nellie. And by keeping oil prices up, he would greatly please the Russians, whose economy is being saved only by the high price of their main export. Russian technology and scientists in Iraq already help make it possible for inspection- free Saddam to build weapons of mass destruction and buy missiles to deliver them.

Relax, says Rosie, a little testily. Even if the price of oil stays sky- high, that does not mean it would cause inflation, triggering higher interest rates, then a stock market drop followed by recession.

Nellie: But isn't that what happened last time?

Rosie: That was then, when we were all hung up on the business cycle. Rest assured that the New Economy can withstand oil shocks, bursting bubbles and all the ills that flesh is heir to.

Nellie: But there has to be something the president can do. What if October gets cold in Connecticut and the price of heating oil is out of sight?

Rosie: No problem  we dump our strategic oil reserve on the market and call it the Lieberman solution. Good quick fix that gets us past the election.

Nellie: But what about a war shock on top of an oil price shock? Saddam is saying that OPEC should defy superpowers, and claims that Kuwait is stealing his oil by drilling slantwise. Isn't that what he said last time, just before he started the gulf war?

Rosie: It's a bluff. Here is a statement from Gen. Paul Mikolashek of the U.S. Central Command, an unbeatable force stretched from Pakistan to Egypt. "I see a lot of rhetoric . . . [Saddam's] armed forces have been degraded." Not to worry. "Degraded" is Pentagonese for "hurt" and shows that the jargon of our military mind is invincible.

Nellie: Like how many troops do we have there? It took over half a million to stop Saddam last time.

Rosie: We have 4,500 troops in Kuwait, a couple of Patriot batteries, an Apache helicopter unit, plus an air base to patrol the no-fly zone. Maybe 15,000 more troops floating around nearby.

Nellie: That's going to stop the whole Iraqi Army? Apaches that couldn't take off in Kosovo?

Rosie: Look, if Saddam miscalculated again, we'd reassemble the Grand Coalition, call up our reserves, and send in CNN's Bernard Shaw to narrate the bombing of Baghdad  the whole nine-yard megillah.

Nellie: Bill Clinton would do that?

Rosie: All from upward of 50,000 feet, with not one U.S. casualty.

Nellie: But what if Saddam says he has the Bomb? And says he's willing to commit suicide but would take Tel Aviv or New York along with him? It may be a bluff, but he's had years to build a nuclear or biological bomb in secret, and I'd hate to be the president to take the chance. We have no defense against a single missile, you know.

Rosie: Get over your nightmares. After we call his military bluff, we'll get next week's G-7 meeting to demand the oil cartel cut prices to $20 a barrel. Then it's world prosperity as far as the ear can hear.

Who's right, Rosie Scenario or Nervous Nellie? I say we should hope for the best and prepare for the worst. That means asking this president and the candidates to take his place: What if? Are we ready?

Let each cool-headed debater say during those 90 unforgiving minutes how he would deal with Saddam's economic and military threats. As Kipling never wrote: If you can keep your head while all others about you are losing theirs  perhaps you don't understand the seriousness of the situation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/21/opinion/21SAFI.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), September 21, 2000

Answers

Fine piece, good for a real belly laugh.

-- Buck (bigbuck@trailways.net), September 21, 2000.