Out of the Depths of the Harem

Changing one event in history is like untangling a nest of vipers; each event wrapping around another, slithering in and out of a writhing knot. Where to start? Grab the head? Seize the tail? Today, the temptation exists for the history altering time traveler to untangle the deadly snarl that has become the Iraq War and chop off the serpent's head by preventing the Supreme Court from appointing George W. Bush president in 2004. There is every reason to believe that President Albert Gore would have stayed focused on the task of pursuing Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan instead of providing training in the art of urban warfare for more Al Qaeda terrorists as the Bush administration continues to insist on doing in Iraq. Sadly, changing presidents would cause only a minor deviation from the collision course chartered between the West and Iraq since the end of World War I. The result of non-Moslems ruling Moslems had been a disaster in the making for over eighty years. The best ways to change the guerre à mort in Iraq today is by keeping the Ottomans ruling over their vast Empire. The least complicated way to accomplish this is to grab the viper by the tail, go back to the 16th century, and preserve the ritual State-sanctioned murder of all new sultans' brothers.