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I generally find that I am in agreement with the Victor Davis Hanson articles. In this case, he is wide of the mark. We have a Marshall plan for the Middle East. And have been funding it for many years.

We purchase the oil for very high prices that they produce for next to nothing in either physical cost or efort. If their product sold for anything near cost it wuld be about $3 per barrell. The technology that allows for the cheap production, processing, and transporttion of their product was developed and paid for elsewhere. The technology that uses their product was likewise developed elsewhere. What more can an outside group do for them other than create a demand, locate the resources, pay for the development, and then pay a high price for the product which they have in abundance and for which they have no use themselves?

I'm not complaining about the "system" of paying for the oil. I'm complain about the idea that the region is "underfunded" with money to pay for the development. The only development that they seem to be interested in is in creating more islamic studies universities. If they will not participate in a materially productive way in a modern economy, a Marshall Plan will not contribute anything.

Read the article. He's giving a chronology of the "conventional wisdom" that has been spouted off since 9/11. It's like a mini-history of the constant sniping liberals do daily.