CREST PEAK, IOWA — With just over a year left to go before the general election, neurosurgeon and evangelical Christian Dr. Ben Carson is currently leading the pack of Republican presidential candidates. At this stage in the process four years ago, another unorthodox, conservative African-American outsider candidate was leading in the polls, and Carson announced yesterday he planned to tap that man for a very “importantful position,” as Carson put it. Herman Cain will be offered a position in the State Department as Ambassador to Uzbekibekistanstan.

“Mr. Cain and I both share a deep level of respect for the relationship this country has had with Uzbekibekistanstan,” Carson told reporters at a campaign stop in Iowa this week, “so I couldn’t think of a more fitting person to be our most prominent representative to Uzbekibekistanstan than him.” Cain of course reminded all Americans in 2012 about Uzbekibekistanstan, a long time American ally, when he told reporters he couldn’t name their president off the top of their head.

But now, should Carson win, Cain would be working directly with President Yuri Hazlazalazashinshin, and Carson thinks that’s a match made in heaven. “Herman is a great businessman, and President Hazlazalazashinshin is a strong leader in his own right,” Dr. Carson told reporters in Iowa, “and so I think they’re a very naturalistical and logicalistic pairing.”

“As we all know,” Carson told the crowd,  “the Uzbekibekistanstans helped build the Great Egyptian grain silos and were also absolutely pivotal in the Revolutionary War we fought against England in 1492, when of course we all know that Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean green — it was green back then according to my Bible.” Carson said caring for Uzbekibekistanstan’s relationship with the U.S. would be his “primarily mission” and that he “very much so looks forward” to renewing the bond between the two countries.

Reached for comment, Cain told the media he was “delighted” that Carson saw so much potential in him. “As we all know, I am America’s preeminent expert on Ukbekibekistanstanish culture and customs,” Cain said in a statement, “and I would of course take the gig with great excitement.” Cain said that one of his bigger goals was to convince President Hazlazalazashinshin to adopt his signature, “9-9-9” tax plan because “no country is truly great until they don’t have the tax revenue to pay for basic services its citizens desperately need.”

“I have every confidential in Herman that he’ll be able to do the job I give him with a plum,” Carson told the crowd, “and I mean that. I’m going to give him a plum every time I ask him to do something, and he better do it, with the plum, or there will be hell to pay. Don’t forget, I nearly stabbed a person one time allegedly. Anyway, God bless America and stuff!”