The future American ambassador to Iran: a fantasy

The future American ambassador to Iran: a fantasy

The act of writing is a tricky and mostly frustrating gig. There’s the story in mind and there’s the blank page. Getting one to spill out onto the other can be an exercise in stomping your feet, cursing, yelling at your dog, cursing some more, checking your email too often, drinking too many cups of coffee, running to the bathroom, cursing some more. Let’s just say that in the act of writing – or not writing but hoping to – there’s a great deal of time spent fantasizing.
     I have a favorite fantasy. I imagine myself in another line of work. There are all sorts of vocations I’d choose. For instance, I’d love to be a carpenter. I’d also love to be a sculpture. I have skills in neither.
     I fantasize about vocations I could actually do. I fantasize about vocations I currently hold the skill sets for. Here’s a top three list, in descending order:

3) An emergency room doctor. I think what attracts me most is the pace, the frenetic quality, the multitasking. Writing is slow and ponderous. It’s a severely overweight man walking. The emergency room is a hockey game. Yes, there’s plenty of down time but there’s also the mad rush, and a lot of looping, and a few wicked slap shots.
     As a young writer, I wanted to change the world. I wanted to change the world through storytelling. As a middle-aged writer I still want to change the world through storytelling. But I realize that stories don’t change the world. Stories momentarily remove readers from time and place. Do you know what we call that? Entertainment.
     Emergency room doctors change the world. Even removing a splinter from someone’s finger is an act of changing the world. Writers don’t remove a splinter from someone’s finger. At least not literally. And if we remove a splinter from someone’s finger on the page, we don’t numb the area and then use a tweezers to gently pull the splinter out of position, as an emergency room doctor might.
     We imagine the day. Hot and humid. Runners moving at various paces on a riverwalk. What cities have beautiful riverwalks? San Antonio? New York? Portland?
     On the riverwalk in Portland one of the runners stumbles. He is a very good athlete and he doesn’t usually stumble. Why now? Why today? Is there something wrong with him that we don’t know? Does he have, for instance, a tumor in his brain that’s causing just the hint of clumsiness? Will that tumor swell? Will that tumor create an unbalance, and far worse? Will this runner end up in a cancer center twenty floors above an emergency room?
     Unknown. It’s too early in the story to tell.
     When the runner stumbles, he loses his footing. A paved running path, there’s also debris. A storm’s recently gone through. Pebbles, branches and Starbucks coffee cups speckle the path. One of those cups reaches up, somehow, and trips the runner. Starbucks coffee cups can do funny things.
     As he falls he reaches out both hands. One of those hands smashes into a tree limb. The tree limb, previously a racecourse for squirrels but now a part of the debris on the Portland riverwalk, is jagged. Points and edges. One of those edges, a sliver of wood, slides into the man’s finger.
     Ouch. That’s the runner’s first reaction while he’s sitting on his butt. His second is to notice the Starbucks coffee cup. He thinks about a lawsuit. Is Starbucks somehow responsible?
     His third reaction is to study the impact of the sliver of wood into his flesh. He’s fascinated by the impact site.
     Do you see the difference? In an emergency room, there wouldn’t be a fascination with the impact site. There would be a medical evaluation of the impact site. The impact site would have to be disinfected. The impact site might need some anesthesia depending upon the severity of the wound. And no one in the emergency room, not the attending physician, not the nurse and not the receptionist, would care about the Starbucks cup.
     Now why would a runner with a splinter in his finger go to an emergency room to remove the splinter? Why wouldn’t he just run home and remove it himself?
     Good question. As an emergency room doctor, that would really bother me.

2) The general manager, in charge of player personnel, for the Denver Nuggets. As my regular readers know, I am a huge Denver Nuggets fan. I grew up obsessing over all things Nuggets. As readers probably know as well, the Nuggets just got swept out of the playoffs by those dreaded Los Angeles Lakers. These are sad, dismal days for Nuggets fans.
     Here’s what I would do as Nuggets general manager. I would fire the coach, George Karl. I would hire a young coach who wants to run, run, run the ball. The coach of the Memphis Grizzlies, a man named Marc Iavaroni, is about to be fired. Memphis doesn’t want to run the ball and Iavaroni made his name as an assistant coach for the Phoenix Suns, back when that team wanted to run, run, run the ball.
     I would hire Iavaroni. I would then place my trust in Iavaroni and Iverson. Player personnel wise I would put Allen Iverson at the point. J.R. Smith becomes the off guard. Linas Kleiza becomes the small forward. Carmelo Anthony becomes the power forward. I’d look to trade Marcus Camby and/or Kenyon Martin. At this point in his career Martin probably has more trade value. Camby, with an easier contract to move, is essentially finished.
     At any rate I’d look to bring in a few shooters. I’m going to run the ball down my opponent’s throat. In Denver, the city of altitude, that can’t be a bad idea. My number one option offensively, when the game turns slow, is Anthony down on the block, with shooters spaced around him. That’s unstoppable and efficient.
     The problem this year wasn’t Denver’s lack of defense. It was Denver’s inefficient offense. My plan might not help the defense but it certainly will make Denver a much more efficient offense. And as everyone knows, the best defense is a really efficient offense.
     The Denver Nuggets, it should be noted, do not officially have a general manager. Maybe I should apply.

1) The American ambassador to Iran. As astounding as this sounds, America has not had official relations with Iran since 1980. The last American ambassador, William Sullivan, was recalled months before the takeover of the American embassy in Tehran.
     That all ends with me. What would I do as American ambassador to Iran? To start, I’d end the ritual condemnation of Iran in the West. How is Iran portrayed today? As the leading member of the Axis of Evil. As the chief sponsor of state-supported terrorism. One man’s terrorist is another man’s hero. There’s a large population out there that hero-worships Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar.
     I want to end the name-calling. It’s simply the superego at its worst. I also want to take a page from history. Back in the 1980s, terrorist number one on the West’s list was the leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi. Today, Gaddafi is a valued member of the family of nations. What turned the rogue leader into an ally? Libya’s economy.
     Libya’s economy, like Iran’s, is almost solely based on oil revenue. In the mid 1980s there was a slump in the oil markets. The price of oil dropped from $27 a barrel in 1985 to $10 a barrel in 1987. Qaddafi responded in two surprising ways. Number one, he adopted a reform policy aimed at liberalizing and privatizing the economy. Number two, he sought foreign investment.
     Now Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is no Muammar Gaddafi. Number one, he doesn’t have the power. Number two, he doesn’t have the vision. He does have the oil. He does have a recession, possibly a depression, on his hands. He also has oil prices surging at $120 a barrel.
     As the American ambassador to Iran, I would suggest the Gaddafi Way to the Iranian leadership. That means, in terms of Iran, the mullah population must be held accountable by accepting critical scrutiny. If the absolute power of the mullahs is beyond reproach, then reform is a pipe dream.
     That means, in terms of Iran, an egalitarian interpretation of the existing constitution. The austerity packages need to end. The price fixing is actually price gouging. State controls over the economy have produced double digit unemployment, high inflation rates and rapidly rising prices. Economists use a dirty word for that phenomenon: stagflation.
     When Gaddafi encountered stagflation in the 1980s he sought foreign investment. Gaddafi did not turn to the United States. The United States was the enemy. Rather, he turned north, to Britain, France and Italy. Iran isn’t going to turn to the United States either. Iran appears to be looking east, toward India and China. Iran even has a name for its policy: the Asia Look.
     That sounds like shrewd investment planning to me. America, of course, has a bit of the Asia Look in its foreign investments, too.
     At any rate, Mr. McCain or Mr. Obama or Ms. Clinton I’m available in early 2009. I think I’ll get along just fine with Dr. Ahmadinejad. And after a gut renovation, I think I’ll have the American embassy in Tehran back in tip-top shape.

Well, enough of the fantasizing. I have a story in mind and a blank page. I better get back to work.

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The Gonzo Journalism of Brian Josepher

The future American ambassador to Iran: a fantasy