Sunday, October 03, 2004

Twinky Diplomacy

In the context of the previous scenerio I am in the mood to compose a meeting with Saddam. Here is the scenerio: An American envoy is sent to Saddam's cell to break the good news to the future president. It will be a succinct first interview designed to get Saddam out of his defeated religious mood and into a more creative upbeat mode. It would be the first of many secret meetings between Saddam and our representative in the State Department:
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ME: Do you know why I am here?
SH: You are here to torture me.
ME: Guess again.
SH: You are here to give me a twinky.
ME: (producing a Twinky from my jacket pocket) Right! You are a very perceptive man, Saddam (I hand him the twinky).
SH: You expect me to eat your poison?
ME: Would you prefer I ate it? (reaching for the Twinky)
SH: (nibbling) So why are you really here?
ME: I am here to offer you a deal. We want you to be Our Puppet.
SH: Like 'on a string?'
ME: Exactly!
SH: (warming up considerably) Your rhetoric is beginning to sound somewhat interesting.
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I imagine that that is roughly the way it would go between me and Saddam. I would explain that what we had here was an opportunity - a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity - to consolidate the Western cultural interest with the Eastern cultural interest in such a way as to avoid interminal religious war, while at the same time allowing Saddam to avoid for the time being the wrath of Allah. I am convinced it would work.