by Richard Stern

How wonderful it would be if all things were governed by Intelligent Design, and that we were intelligent enough to figure out the design. As far as the universe is concerned, my guess is that we have about the same sense of its ultimate design that a worm has of relativity theory or Hamlet. As for matters closer to home, the record is not all that great. Predictions about the outcome of major policy decisions are not all that brilliant. Henry Kissinger's gloomy assessment of the U.S. "failure" in Vietnam doesn't have much to do with the fairly tranquil prosperity of today's Vietnam, let alone the triumph of the USSR (gone and basically forgotten) or of Red China (not at all the country envisaged in the ponderosities of this prosperous ex-statesman, now revealed by Woodward to be a steady consultant to Messrs Bush and Cheney). So what about the general consensus that a murderous chaos would befoul Iraq if the Americans would leave the country in the next days, weeks or months. Who's to say what will happen? Almost every parent worries about leaving little children with a baby sitter the first times he goes out to dinner or a movie. Oh yes, there's much crying, some of it desperate, but then it usually turns out quite well. The children learn quickly to adapt to the absence of Mom and Dad. Ok, there might well be an explosion of vicious killing if the Americans took off, but how long would that go on? Isn't there almost unremitting killing there today? And who knows if these intelligent people, used now to having an independent voice, would not quickly work towards a social contract which would enable them to live their lives in tranquility? Looking back, we can see that perhaps the worst decisions of our present and recent leaders--Cheney, Rumsfeld, Colin Powell--occurred after the Gulf war. Saddam Hussein was left in power. Why? Then Iraqi generals asked General Schwarzkopf if they could keep their weapons. Sure, said the good general, and the weapons would soon be mowing down the Shiites in the marshes. The peace treaty draft Schwarzkopf submitted to Washington came back unmarked by suggestion or corrective from any of these illustrious gentlemen. Events slid from these casual errors, and a decade later, Gulf war II was fought, and the foulest and most deadly quagmire daily challenges the semi-religious certitudes of Bush, Cheney, Rice,and Rumsfeld. Intelligent Design? Tell it to the marines.