As one who expected President Bush to announce an invasion of Colombia by now, I am still adjusting to the idea of invading Iraq, trading in jungle boots for desert boots, switching dictionaries, and so on.

In terms of straight self-interest, I live on the price of oil like everyone else in America. Moreover, war makes refugees, and refugees start little ethnic restaurants. Global tragedy has often provided Boston with new cuisines. Iraqi food is ancient and complicated and delicious. (Colombian food is hearty mountain vittles.) Do you like Pho Pasteur, the Helmand, Elephant Walk, or Lala Rokh? Support the war! If a war economy leaves people without money to spend in restaurants, I could write a lot of columns about thrifty cooking instead of reviewing New American bistros.

More personally and seriously, I’m reluctant to go along with Bush’s apparent plan to invade Iraq again, and at the same time, I’m reluctant to join the active opposition (partially because of who else belongs to it, but mostly because I think the situation is complicated).

The best argument for invading is the stop-Hitler argument. I also have some respect for the price-of-oil argument. Unlike the Vietnam War, this would be a better war to win than to lose, if we cannot avoid fighting it.

On the negative side, my main concern is that in destabilizing a large secular Muslim country, we may be playing into the hands of Al Qaeda or other forces on the Muslim religious right. They surely knew the US would react after 9/11, and I think their hope was that the reaction would fall upon civilians in a way that would enhance the political standing of groups like theirs against the established governments in Muslim countries.

If we invade successfully, we will be in a position somewhere between where we stand in Afghanistan and where Israel stands in the West Bank. It can be argued that Israel had no choice; the same can’t be argued if the US ends up occupying Iraq. I also wonder about the wisdom of tying our foreign policy so directly to the interests of multinational oil companies. I regret that President Bush did not draw on 9/11 to broaden his base of support away from the oil business and toward energy conservation, although I think he has dropped a few of the worst ideas for which he was elected. Of course, Americans accepted gas rationing during World War II, so perhaps the road to conservation runs through Iraq. That would be a bigger irony than looking forward to Iraqi-American restaurants, but Bush is already the president of Big Ironies. Invading Iraq because a Saudi terrorist blew up a restaurant called Windows on the World? Why not "Bikes for Bombs"?

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