Ironically, the best way to make sure we don’t see the likes of the Texas smuggling tragedy that led to the deaths of 18 illegal immigrants is a relaxation of law enforcement.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad the Texas authorities seem to be fiercely pursuing the culprits behind this monstrosity.

But the reason why migrant workers turn to smugglers, or coyotes as they’re known, is because they can’t get across the border in a safer, more legal way. And as more and more resources have been poured into border patrol, the coyotes have had to take even more precautions to make sure their illegal cargo is not discovered. That’s how you get someone with the brilliant idea of packing people like sardines in the back of a refrigerated truck with no air to breathe.

As long as there’s opportunity here, people will try to seize it. And I don’t want to make the United States a police state or a third-world country to stop illegal immigration. And there’s not a damn thing wrong with trying to make money for honest work, no matter what the law says.

American policy, however, is that migrant workers must risk their lives in order to improve them. One wonders if the real tragedy, from the perspective of those responsible for our disastrous and immoral border policy, isn’t that anyone survives the trek at all.

In a National Journal column posted at Reason’s Web site, Jonathan Rauch writes, “Spending the world’s goodwill on reform in the Arab world is the most dangerous course the Bush administration could have set, except for all the others.”

Unfortunately, Rauch doesn’t consider all the other options, at least not in the column. He thinks our options are to continue to support dictatorial Arab regimes or to engage in a policy never-ending war (or threat of war) to achieve “democracy,” which supposedly will be less anti-American.

But there is another option: retrenchment. Pulling the troops out of Saudi Arabia was a good first step. This doesn’t mean giving up the fight against Al Qaeda; it means redoubling that effort, and it means not giving Islamic extremists yet more reason for their “irrational” hatred of the United States.

Meanwhile, Steve Chapman takes a pretty strong stand today, criticizing the solution of regime change in Iraq as “Some solution. A full month after our great triumph, the critics are as critical as ever, the United States is still isolated and Iraq is in chaos. Instead of being cornered and cowed, Al Qaeda is on the offensive, deploying suicide bombers to slaughter Americans. And has anyone noticed that Afghanistan has slid back into anarchy?”

I’m dividied about what to do now that we’re in Iraq. Just withdrawing might only worsen things and leave the impression that we came, we saw, we conquered, we ditched the place. But it’s been very bumpy so far. Now the U.S. has managed to upset not just Islamic extremists but regular old Iraqis who have this odd insistence on food, water, electricity, gas, jobs.

And now we read that it may take years for the Iraqi oil industry to fully recover and really start bringing in the dough.

Good ol’ Afghanistan, at least, was dirt and resource poor so there was no pretension that we could turn it around lickety split.