Guys, the only place to find hope is in facing the present first.

If this war is inevitable, let us try to steer its outcome in a positive direction. While the passge is too horrible to even have nightmares about, where do we go from here? This is something like trying to envision a Marshall Plan while watching the Maginot line go down, but we've all been through a lot of history.

I would like to see Iraq take a proud placeamong the community of nations because of its unique heritage as, probably, the birthplace of Western civilization, the mother of Western tongues and the fountainhead of agricultural knowledge as well as much else.

As such it would rightly attract more tourists than Paris, if the identitiy of the nation, historically, were properly promoted. Given such a postion from which to communicate, and the prosperity it by natural rights should be enjoying from its own place and resources, the chances are that in fact it could act as beacon of balance and intelligent organization to other Islamic states all through the Middle East.

That would be worth pushing. Any ideas out there?


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