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.

You’ve probably heard about Texas Democrats skipping the state to prevent the House of Representatives from achieving a quorum for a vote that would redraw district lines in favor of the Republicans.

One can only hope that legislators around the country take this “hooky government” as a model. How’s the saying go? That government which governs best, goes AWOL?

To make room for guys like Tommy Chong.

He’s looking at three years and $250,000 for selling bongs. What can be said?

Getting on Rod Blagojevich’s good side during the campaign: $85,000.

Helping to fund Blagojevich’s inaugural gala: $100,000.

Getting the General Assembly to pass and G-Rod to sign in a lightning quick four days a law to double your competitors’ rates: priceless.

Way to go, SBC!

Of course, it’s only a coincidence that SBC’s president is Bill Daley, Da Mare’s big bruddah.

If the O’Hare expansion legislation being muscled through the General Assembly gets through (and is signed by G-Rod after a very pensive, deliberative two or three hours), it may never end.

The legislation would allow Chicago to expand beyond the 433 acres Da Mare agreed to in his deal with Gov. George “Safe Highways” Ryan.

“We can’t tell today exactly how this airport will turn out because the FAA review isn’t finished,” city lawyer Michael Schneiderman told the Tribune. “We may have to move runways slightly, runway protection zones and change the location of [navigation] beacons. If more land is need, though, it would be just a little more, and a surprise to us.”

You can almost see the guy biting his lip to stop himself from breaking out in fits of laughter. You see, if they need the extra land, it’ll only be a little, and it’ll be a big surprise. And isn’t it odd that Da Mare wants the General Assembly to get this deal done even though the FAA hasn’t even signed off on it yet?

I’m not big on federal oversight, but if the FAA’s supposed to make sure the damn thing’s safe, shouldn’t we make sure the plan’s safe before approving it. You see, it’s get the deal done first, ask questions (which will be ignored) later.

The legislation would also require any pending lawsuits to be removed to friendlier Cook County courts. How convenient!

The Illinois House Executive Committee today voted 9-3 in favor of giving Chicago’s government the right to immediately condemn land — land currently occupied by 600 homes and two cemeteries — in suburbs surrounding O’Hare International Airport, only to settle the purchase price later.

Euphemistically called “quick take” power, the policy amounts to giving the city the power to say: “We take it, you sold it, and we’ll tell you for how much when we feel like it.”

A study paid for the by the city and performed by a company, Ricondo & Associates — with at least hundreds of thousands of dollars worth in contracts over the years at O’Hare — admitted that doubling capacity at O’Hare under the current reconfiguration plan will lead to even worse delays than there are right now once air travel catches up.

Critics argue that people moving into Elk Grove, Bensenville, Park Ridge, etc. should have known that the city would want to expand O’Hare eventually. The growth of these suburbs was nurtured by O’Hare’s existence, they say, and now they’ve the nerve to complain about expanding it?

If everyone just knew all along that O’Hare would be expanded, why didn’t the city buy up 2,000 acres surrounding the airport back then for potential expansion? In Chicago — or even near Chicago — it’s true that if you turn your back for a minute Da Mare and his pals will rob you blind. It’s to be expected. A few crossed their fingers and took a chance on moving to a nice place. They laid it on the line that they might be left alone.

The gamble didn’t pay off. But you know the house always wins in Chicago.

And if Da Mare has his way — which he probably will thanks to G-Rod — he’ll be the owner of brand-new land-based casino in Chicago proper. You thought the city did a great job fixing the streets? Just wait until you see how they deal black jack.

I’ve got no beef with gaming. I say we make Chicago Bill Bennett’s new favorite vacation spot. But I don’t want Da Mare’s Chicago, or any government entity, running a casino.

It’s bad enough that state lotteries around the country spend millions on advertising designed to convince otherwise hardworking people to shell out their money on the worst odds ever given. People are stupid enough without the government encouraging it.

First the state miseducates you for 14 years, then turns around and tries to tell you “players have more fun.”

Meanwhile, the government gets hooked on gaming revenues and has to feed the beast ever more just to break even. It’s a great deal for everyone concerned, obviously, as long as you don’t mind heavily regressive taxation and dishonest government.

Not that the process is fixed, by any means. Because even if Democrat-controlled Springfield gives a casino license to Chicago, the City Council — aka, the world’s least deliberative body — must still say yea.

And Da Mare said he doesn’t mind at all if aldermen vote their conscience and turn down an outfit-run city — er, city-run outfit. He won’t hold it against them personally or punish them in anyway. He’ll just deprive their residents of new streets, new schools, new cops, etc. Because, gee, what other possible sources of revenue could the city have? He said it, I swear.

… what were we fightin’ for?

The United States may stumble upon something it can claim was part of the Hussein regime’s biological and chemical weapons program, but it turns out that the great intelligence Dubya & Co. told us they had about Hussein’s WMD was a bunch of half-baked nonsense.

That’s the conclusion I draw, anyway, from Seymour Hersh’s excellent New Yorker story, “Selective intelligence.” Rummy didn’t like what the CIA was telling him — or more to the point, not telling him — so he started his own intelligence operation within the Defense Department.

As Hersh himself admits in an interview, there’s no reason the CIA should have a monopoly on intelligence-gathering duties. But this group had some strange ideas about how to do intelligence — namely, that their analysis shouldn’t be constrained by mere known facts.

Hersh puts it this way in the interview:

The Pentagon group’s idea was, essentially: Let’s just assume that there is a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq, and let’s assume that they have made weapons of mass destruction, and that they’re still actively pursuing nuclear weapons and have generated thousands of tons of chemical and biological weapons and not destroyed them.

Having made that leap of faith, let’s then look at the intelligence the C.I.A. has assembled with fresh eyes and see what we can see. As one person I spoke to told me, they wanted to believe it was there and, by God, they found it.

The Pentagon intelligence group — the Office of Special Plans — also made extensive use of the testimony of Iraqi defectors, which alone is not a bad thing. Defectors of course could be useful in providing tips leading to actual evidence. But the Pentagon group just took the defectors’ word about all sorts of crazy things that have turned out not to be true, such as one Iraqi engineer’s claim that WMD labs were hidden under Iraqi hospitals.

Worse yet, many of the defectors were directly supplied to the Special Plans Office by the Iraqi National Congress, an exile group with obvious political motives that calls into question the caliber of the intelligence they helped gather. Ahmad Chalibi, INC chief muckety-muck, is now a leading candidate for installation by the United States as Iraq’s new benevolent leader.

Of course, now top Dubya administration sources admit that the WMD argument was mostly for show. The real reason why the United States wanted to oust Hussein was to throw its weight around in the Middle East.

My view all along was that even if Hussein’s regime did possess WMD it did not present an undeterrable threat to the United States. And on that basis, there was no compelling reason for intervention that was not greatly outweighed by all the risks of war, yes, but also an unending occupation/nation-building mission as likely to spur even more resentment and hatred among the Mideast lunatic fringe as transform Baghdad into a shining city on a hill.

What can be said? The war was spun. The intelligence for the war was spun. Dubya & Co. think they’re doing God’s work and God don’t mind a little fibbin’ if that’s what it takes to get the job done. Maybe they are. I’m glad Hussein’s out of power. I hope we can give Iraq some semblance of a free country before we get out.

I hope dearly against hope for all of that because it chills me to think of what’s to be feared.

Newly christened lame duck Illinois Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, nominally a Republican, did one good thing while in office before deciding he didn’t have it in him to run again without the backing of his own party.

He appointed three independent U.S. attorneys in the state of Illinois, prosecutors committed to ending our state’s infamous history — er, present — of political chicanery, corruption and outright silliness.

That hurts pols on both sides, as the Trib’s John Kass pointed out yesterday.

So there’s at least one good thing. He also played a key role in saving the homes of thousands of suburbanites who would have been bulldozed, literally, by the Daley machine that had the Senate this close to federalizing the decision about whether to expand O’Hare Airport. Now that deal is dead because the airlines are broke.

But it almost happened. And Fitzgerald stopped it. I guess that’s two good things. I should learn to count. Fitzgerald knew how to count what matters — not the support of Illinois’ all-too-cozy two-headed monsters, but right on one hand and wrong on the other.

“So now as I’m leavin’
I’m weary as Hell
The confusion I’m feelin’
Ain’t no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God is on our side
He’ll stop the next war”

— Bob Dylan, “With God On Our Side”

Dubya’s lookin’ at you, Syria.

But what about us, Dubya? What about us?

While the news media’s hyperventilation over the military’s supposed “operational pause” is certainly overblown, it is clear that the war in Iraq hasn’t played out as perfectly as its supporters had hoped. But the war will be won soon, and probably without too many casualties on either side, all things considered. At least we hope so.

But even assuming that conquering Iraq and ousting the Hussein regime remains a piece of cake, if not a cakewalk, for American military might, building a peaceful democratic republic in Iraq may prove to be more of a challenge.

The question may yet be whether most Iraqis, in spite of their gratitude for U.S. help in overthrowing Hussein’s regime, will welcome Americans as liberators rather than as occupiers. It’s a risky proposition.

As Steve Chapman pointed out in his column yesterday, nationalism is still a very powerful force. It is, he argues, the one universal that may yet overpower the attractiveness of participatory government. Indeed, national self-determination and democracy often go hand in hand.

What we are engaging in here is essentially a new colonolialism. No, I don’t think it is intended to exploit Iraq’s oil. But it is a benevolent attempt at helping the Iraqis help themselves and purportedly make the United States and the world safer in the process.

But the truth is we have no idea how our efforts will be received. American peacekeeping forces in Iraq may be targets of terrorism. Iraqis may, fairly or not, perceive the U.S.’s deep involvement in the government of their daily affairs as exploitation rather than education.

It’s a fine line between nation building and nation bullying. Who knows what side of the line we’ll wind up on? And even if Iraqis are happy, how will the rest of the Middle East view matters? They are already lied to by government-controlled news media.

Even if things go swimmingly, chances are that, in the long term, our short-term occupation (assuming it is short) will be not viewed favorably, and will indeed serve as greater ammunition for terrorist reprisals on American soil and American forces in the Middle East.

All of this might well be worth the risk — after all, nothing in war is guaranteed — if the threat were real and imminent. In this case it manifestly is not. This is an elective war. One that might make us ever-so-marginally safer, but which has the potential to make us much worse off. I hope all goes well. I fear it won’t. And the gap between those two leaves me confused … and angry.

… and what the heck did Daley do to it?

Check this link to the Friends of Meigs Web site, which has the latest news.