Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Count on Big Three

Friday, Nov. 16, 2001 | 5:12 a.m.

This isn't a column about cars, although when it comes to changing the oil I am somewhat of an expert. That's because I have a great deal of failed experience in such matters. Now I take my car in to the professionals.

The point of that very short romp through ancient history is to reiterate the old adage that says those who don't pay attention to history are doomed to repeat it.

Here's another piece of history. It is a "Where I Stand" column written over 30 years ago by my father, Hank Greenspun.

It was during the height of the Cold War when the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics -- that's what we used to call Russia -- were the world's only two superpowers. We were constantly at each other's throats.

We did, however, have one thing in common, and that was a deep and abiding respect and belief in the theory of mutually assured destruction, which went like this: you attack us with your nuclear missiles and we will unlock the gates of hell. Neither one of us nor anyone else, for that matter, will survive. It was enough to keep the two superpowers -- no matter how dicey life got in the fast lane of the Cold War -- from doing the unthinkable.

We had something else in common. And that was a shared concern about every other upstart country that was feeling its own way into the nuclear age. It was one thing for the two big boys to have mutually destructive capabilities. It was quite another for third world dictators and nutcakes to have the keys to nuclear winter.

Hank suggested that the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. get together and give every other aspiring nuclear nation an ultimatum. Either throw down your weapons of mass destruction and any dreams of developing them or we, the two superpowers, would do the job for you. It was quite provocative at the time, and didn't get much traction, mostly, I assume, because our two countries couldn't agree on the time of day let alone anything as substantial as world nuclear disarmament.

I am reminded of that idea today as we contemplate our next moves in the war against terrorism. It is in that spirit and in the hope that we don't repeat history by failing to act that I put to paper what I have been thinking since Sept. 11, 2001.

There is no question that our "friends" in Saudi Arabia have been, at the very least, aiders, abettors and financiers of the terrorist attacks on the United States. Most of those murdering bums we will hunt down and kill. Others will have a different fate. The Saudis fall into the "other" category.

There are three major powers on this Earth: Russia, China and the United States. Each has the capability of being a leader in the 21st century. And each of us is a target for religious fundamentalists who have chosen to terrorize the world for their own political goals.

I propose that the Big Three ally themselves for the purpose of internationalizing the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. That would be the price the Saudis must pay for their complicity in the destruction and death on U.S. soil. It would also allow the group to dispense oil to those nations in the future who abandon all designs on world, regional or local domination.

Those countries who fight terrorism and who become good actors on the world stage will be sold oil at reasonable prices. Those who don't, won't. In fact they won't get oil at all. And if other oil producing nations decide to undermine the efforts of the Big Three, we will deal with them in a most convincing way.

The result of this move would be threefold: The Saudi monarchy would fall and sail off to London or Switzerland to spend their trillions in a lifetime of continued luxury which would allow the people of Saudi Arabia, with our help and the billions they would receive as a royalty from the sale of oil, to move towards a democracy which would be followed by the other Gulf States; China, Russia and the United States would be forced to work together toward a greater good which might, in turn, open up a whole new world of positive opportunities.

But, most importantly, world politics and life-and-death decision making would no longer be influenced by oil. The United States has always tied its own hands because of our dependence on oil and our refusal to find alternative energy sources. Our geopolitics have been dictated in too great a measure by the price and location of the world's oil reserves. This would no longer be the case.

On April 28, 1968, my father thought that the world could be made safe from nuclear blackmail if only the United States and the U.S.S.R. could get together. He was ignored and we are paying a very heavy price today because everyone and his brother has the means to destroy the world or large parts of it.

My idea may not be perfect, but I am certain that people smarter than I can figure the rest out. What we need to do, though, is think well outside of the box with which we have surrounded ourselves for far too long.

We were attacked. We have the absolute right and the responsibility to ourselves and this world to make it safer. Imagine how Sept. 11 could have happened if we had not coddled those murderers out of respect for the almighty barrel of oil. It wouldn't have.

We have it in our power to make sure it never happens again.