Happy 2003 every­one! Hope you all toasted a big cham­pagne flute to the future in the hopes that this year is bet­ter than the last.
In the spirit of the new year, it’s also res­o­lu­tion time. And I’d like to share some of the super-secret res­o­lu­tions from sev­eral of the major char­ac­ters in this on-going drama called the Mid­dle East.
U.S. Pres­i­dent George W. Bush, resolved: To focus on more than one cri­sis at a time so that impor­tant hotspots don’t get put on the back burner while I set­tle an old score and make my oil bud­dies happy. Will get to this right after I take care of Iraq. Hey, a guy can only han­dle one strate­gery at once, you know.
Iraqi Pres­i­dent Sad­dam Hus­sein, resolved: To be the new Fidel Cas­tro of the Mid­dle East. And make Uday shape up. That boy is out of con­trol.
PLO chair­man, Yas­sir Arafat, resolved: To con­tinue being the Fidel Cas­tro of the Mid­dle East.
Israeli Prime Min­is­ter, Ariel Sharon, resolved: To inflame the Pales­tini­ans so much with provoca­tive set­tle­ment poli­cies, which pan­der to my right wing base, mak­ing all out war inevitable and prompt­ing even more sup­port from Amer­ica. Oh, yeah, and kill Yas­sir Arafat.
Egypt­ian Pres­i­dent Hosni Mubarak, resolved: To con­tinue talk­ing up democ­racy and devel­op­ment to my west­ern patrons while wink­ing at my country’s anti-Semitic media and sup­press­ing free­dom of expres­sion at home. This should be an easy one!
PUK leader, Jalal Tal­a­bani, resolved: To win a seat in a new par­lia­ment in a fed­eral repub­lic of Iraq and kill my arch rival, Mas­soud Barzani.
KDP leader, Mas­soud Barzani, resolved: To win a seat in a new par­lia­ment in a fed­eral repub­lic of Iraq and kill my arch rival, Jalal Tal­a­bani.
Turk­ish Jus­tice and Devel­op­ment Party leader, Recep Tayyip Erdo­gan, resolved: To finally be prime min­is­ter of Turkey, dammit.
Afghani Pres­i­dent Harmid Karzai, resolved: To stay alive.
Osama bin Laden, resolved: To lis­ten more to com­pet­ing view­points, to take oth­ers’ feel­ings into account more and to really under­stand the peo­ple I dis­agree with. To kill more Amer­i­cans. Allahu akbar!
Happy New Year, everyone!