Remora

It is said that passengers of the great dirigibles experienced flight in a much different way than the passengers of other aircraft: for the passengers on the Hindenburg, the landscape moved by in vast visionary sweeps.

The commentariat often write themselves into a sort of dirigible view of events, vast visionary sweeps which, unlike those available to those lucky balloonists of yore, have nothing to do with this or any other planet.

Limited Inc has just finished Stan Crock's column in Business Week on the "third reason" for toppling Saddam Hussein's regime and the feeling of dreamy irreality couldn't be more complete. Here's the middle grafs, bodying forth his argument:

"But let's consider the Unspoken Argument. The cumulative impact of seeing secular moderates such as the opposition Iraqi National Congress assuming power in Baghdad so soon after a moderate secular regime came to power in Kabul could have a transforming impact on the entire Middle East. For too long, the blithe assumption has been that the two alternatives for government in the region are the current corrupt, antidemocratic, oppressive regimes or the radical fundamentalists.

However, Afghanistan and Iraq could demonstrate a Third Way. The secular traditions of a Turkey or Indonesia could take hold in other parts of the Islamic crescent. Look at Morocco, which is already is starting to transform itself into a more modern political and economic model.

Iraq's enemy, Iran, could be one of the first to change. Without a dangerous neighbor like Saddam, the more moderate forces in Tehran may be able to wrest power from the archconservative mullahs. Jordan and Egypt also could evolve."

Love love love. In Mr. Crock's benign view, a government that hasn't even yet been installed in Afghanistan (a country where the rapid turnover of governments and the dissolution of the countryside into a patchwork of warlord domains isn't the exception, but the rule) is already offering tax exemptions to its native software start-ups. As for the secular traditions of "a Turkey or Indonesia" (and we particularly love the placement of the indefinite article, "a" -- with the implication that these nations are mere interchangeable tinker toys for the can do American spirit), this elides the tricky question of nationality big time. Behind Mr. Crock's back, no doubt, Indonesia recently went through a revolution, and a war in East Timor that many might describe as something other than a secular Woodstock. And Turkey is being buffeted by a debt crisis that is only going to play into the hands of the "Virtue" party. As for the bloodshed in the guerilla war waged by the Kurds, this is out of Mr. Crock's purview entirely.

This isn't to disagree with Mr. Crock's view that there has to be another option for the Middle East besides dictatorship and fundamentalism. But that option is definitely not going to arrive, like the tooth fairy's quarter for the baby tooth under your pillow, by amassing American troops for a unilateral action against Iraq.