I’m in the mood today to solve some of the world’s political problems. Having Israel sitting smack-dab in the middle of Arab country has been a constant problem ever since some genius came up with the idea about 60 years ago. And the accelerating Islamization of Western nations has more recently been seen as building toward a dramatic confrontation between two very different cultures. My solutions to these problems are simple in theory but difficult to implement — which seems to be a prerequisite for world-changing ideas these days (democratize the Middle East, end world hunger, stop the use of illegal drugs, invent a thermostat for the earth). I expect some resistance to my plans, but here goes:

Israel: Move all the Israelis to Wyoming. Let the Arabs fight over what’s left behind for the next hundred years or so. We can stay out of it because we won’t have a dog in the fight (and neither will Michael Vick). We can forget about Iran for several more years because they will be busy developing the capability to deliver their nukes to Wyoming. By then our missile defense system should be able to take them out anyway.

But what about the people now in Wyoming you ask? No problem; there aren’t that many there. They can choose to stay and become Israelis or move to neighboring states and remain Americans. Those cowboys aren’t likely to organize and start lobbing rockets and mortars across the border. Some (most?, all?) of them will resist but they will have to just suck it up and take one for the Gipper.

The Israelis can rename Cheyenne to Jerusalem and Casper to Bethlehem. I think they should leave Chugwater, Ten Sleep, Tie Siding, Bar Nunn, Crowheart, Gas Hills, Lost Cabin, Point of Rocks, Bill and Cora alone. But these names might not sound as colorful in Hebrew.

With Israel located in the heart of the USA it should be a lot easier and less expensive to protect them. And it would take away one of the biggest gripes that the Middle Easterners have with us.

With the implementation of my next plan there will be no Muslims in the USA to bother the Israelis.

Islamization: Turn Europe over to the Muslims. Move all the non-Muslims in Europe to the USA, Canada and Israel* — liberals to Canada, conservatives to the USA, Jews to Israel. Move all the Muslims in the USA and Canada to Europe. Require all Muslims that want to leave their hopeless countries to emigrate to Europe.

Some of the European countries are projected to go majority Muslim within the next few decades anyway. When that happens non-Muslims aren’t going to want to stay there and the Muslims will be glad to see them go. This will give the Muslims an opportunity to establish the Caliphate that they seem to want. They can just pretend that Europe and Asia constitute the world.

Besides heading off a tragic clash of cultures, this can become a gigantic socio-economic experiment. I’ve always wondered, if an Islamic society is so great, why do so many Muslims want to go live amongst the infidels. I’ve come to suspect that it is because an Islamic society is simply not conducive to strong economic development. But then it might be just part of a grand plan to Islamize the world. Anyway, turning Europe over to the Muslims will give us a chance to see what they will do with it. Will they send its economy into the crapper or will they prosper? Some, though, might argue that this won’t be a fair experiment because Europe’s economy is already headed for the crapper.

If you have a better plan, tell me about it.
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*Remember, Israel is now where Wyoming used to be.

When the British hostages are recovered from Iran, Britain should immediately launch an attack against Iran. They should punish them severely from the air and sea and then quietly withdraw. Iran should not be allowed to take such a hostile action without consequences. Britain should not accept the humiliation that the USA accepted (that is, Jimmy Carter accepted) during the embassy hostage situation in 1980. If we had retaliated appropriately then (yes, Ronald Reagan could have done that after he took office in 1981), Iran might not be the troublemaker that it is today.

Whether or not the Brits wandered into Iranian territory is irrelevant. Rational nations don’t initiate international incidents over miscalibration of GPS devices. If the Iranians sincerely believed that their GPS coordinates were correct and the Brit’s were wrong, then a simple warning to the Brits on-scene should have been sufficient to deal with the breach. It is clear that the Iranians wanted to provoke an incident.

Since this is a maritime incident, Iranian ports would be appropriate targets for the attack. But no, they can’t do that because it might disrupt the flow of oil from Iran. In fact, attacking any target in Iran might provoke them to shut off the flow of oil to Western Nations. Maybe the Brits aren’t willing to be held hostage to their thirst for oil. But many in the USA would rather have pretty beaches than energy independence. Maybe the Brits will have the courage to weather some short-term consequences of an attack to gain the longer-term benefits. After all, Iran is as dependent on selling its oil as the West is on buying it.