Whoa, dude, thanks for bending over backwards to accommodate me. Now we have way too much to talk about!
Looking at the whole pile of challenges at once could take wind out of anybody's sails. I figure that we should decompose the problems down into manageable chunks. I'm sure the actual officeholders in Washington have to do the same thing to get a handle on the mess.
In fact, I'm inclined to go to the opposite extreme, and focus down on just one detail, like the one of ObL's talking points about how America is sucking all the oil out of the Middle East. I like the idea of pulling on that one thread in the tangled ball of twine because it's potentially amenable to constructive action, and that action would have lots of constructive sideeffects. Oil's the smart place to start in any analysis of the situation in the Middle East because it sheds light on the causes-and-effects of history that brought us to this pass. (The details are the subject of that future thread.) Or some other thread small enough to tackle but whose solution could have a big payoff.
One thing's for sure, we'll never see all the world's problems solved in a single thread.
Mostly you seemed to be trying, but at the end you sure went off on a tanget:
I do know that if Bush disappeared in a cloud of purple smoke, and the person of your choice suddenly became President, not a hell of a lot would change.
No, no, no, Tom! Stop that! Bad partisan!
What candidate of my choice? What candidates? Nobody's running yet!
I once suggested a game-like context for discussion, playing the role of a thinktank with a contract with the Bush Administration. The premise doesn't require the disappearance of Bush (with or without purple smoke), nor does it imply that our recommendations would have to wait until 2008 for implementation. I'm not imposing any political constraints at all. I want a good answer, not the politically expedient one.