ASPEN, Colo. (CNN/Money) -
General Wesley Clark sounds very much like he'll be running for President. It will take years for Iraq's oil production to make a dent in global supply. And it's unlikely the federal government's terror alert system will ever be lowered to level green, the mark of very low concern.
Those are just a few of the opinions, observations and theories that were bandied about in the first afternoon and evening of Fortune's Brainstorm 2003 conference, an annual event held in this little corner of paradise at the base of Aspen Mountain.
Who's here? Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, Charles Schwab CEO David Pottruck, Harvard University President Lawrence Summers, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, instant-messaging pioneer Yossi Vardi, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff.
And those are just a few of the faces within eyeshot at the opening dinner Monday night. Lots of egos. But also lots of ideas.
Here comes the General
One thought that was hard to escape Monday night is that General Clark walks, talks and looks like a candidate for the highest office in the land. A former supreme commander of NATO, Clark answered a resounding "maybe" when asked if he plans to enter the Democratic primary in a bid to run against President Bush.
But the guy didn't need to say "yes" to show where he's headed. In condemning the administration on everything from its reasons for going to war to its inattention to global problems and relationships, the handsome and statesmanlike Clark seemed ready for action.
For the sheer spectacle of it, Clark's entry would be terrific, because he speaks in full sentences, is capable of exciting a crowd and would be guaranteed to stir things up.
His thoughts on the effort to topple Saddam Hussein? "It had no direct connection to the war on terror."
His thoughts on the administration's snubbing of old allies? "One of the problems with allies is that they sometimes have their own opinions, especially if they're democracies. Leadership is about persuading the other fellow to do what you want him to do. We could do a lot better job of leadership if we work through alliances.
Bring it on, General.
On oil and terrorism...
On the energy front, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Daniel Yergin debunked the myth that we should expect a rejuvenated Iraqi oil industry to become a gusher any time soon.
| Recently by Adam Lashinsky
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Just to get Iraq back to its 1990 levels of production would take $5 billion, he said. To increase Iraq's production by the amount of oil Kuwait produces -- the scenario a handful of optimists are forecasting -- would take a decade and $40 billion to $50 billion.
Brainstorm is nothing if not provocative. And Stanford University psychologist Phillip Zimbardo certainly provoked in a presentation suggesting that the Bush administration has accomplished the goal of terrorists by unnecessarily scaring the heck out of the American public.
"I think I'm in a 1984 experiment," he said, comparing the language of a "war" on terror -- it'll be no more successful than the wars on poverty or drugs -- to Orwellian doublespeak.
Zimbardo, in a presentation titled "The Psychology of Evil and the Politics of Fear," did a good job of scaring me. The upshot is that because the so-called war against terrorism has made Americans overly obsessed with the terrorist threat, "there will never be a time when someone will have the guts to say the alarm level is reduced to green," says Zimbardo, who, believe it or not, is a pretty cheerful guy.
Adam Lashinsky is a senior writer for Fortune magazine. Send e-mail to Adam at lashinskysbottomline@yahoo.com.
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