Shall We Play A Game?

The Iranians continue to play games with the 15 British soldiers captured in Iraqi waters last week. First it was about letting the female soldier go, then she was shown apologizing, then a letter from her asks Tony Blair to pull out troops, now another soldier goes on TV to apologize. All of this with a backdrop of Iran building "the bomb" and attempting to take over the area south of Baghdad.

This is what 3,200+ brave American men and women died for? This is why 20,000+ have been injured? This is the reason we are now at our lowest state of readiness in modern history? So Iran can play American Idol with 15 British troops and stoke the fires of anger with America and the UK?

Attempting to put the reasons we went to war in context to today seems almost absurd. The three major people groups (Sunni, Shite, and Kurd) don't want to live together. They would much rather wipe the other one off the face of this Earth. So bringing "democracy" to the region ain't happening anytime soon.

Splitting them up into three separate provinces like Bosnia seems equally absurd, since only two sections of Iraq are habitable for some large masses of people. Plus, once we separate them, Iran will gladly absorb the southern province while the Kurds may look to expand their territory and take back what was taken from them by Turkey and Iran. Of course, Saudi Arabia or Syria may just look to take a bit for themselves.

Actually ... sure ... why not let them just take the scraps and let's just end this experiment that was forged out of World War I? ... And then we are reminded of the fundamental issue that has kept us in Iraq far longer than anyone ever thought.

Oil.

Looked at gas prices lately? That little skirmish and a lack of long-term stability, combined with some good ol' fashioned world market price gouging, has started pushing gas prices back into the ceiling here in America. We can't leave because it will mean that those countries we don't get along with very much will have us by the throat when it comes to oil.

So everyday more soldiers die so that we can try to enjoy gas below $3.00 a gallon. Everyday our friends, our family, they go and try to put the pieces of Iraq back together so we can keep feeding our oil addiction.

President Bush, in his 2007 State of the Union, talked of a serious push towards alternative energy sources with a target of 20 years. Just how many soldiers will die between now and then for oil? How weak will we have become in those 20 years? Mr. Bush, shall we continue to play this game or is it finally time to start acting like a president?