You may have noticed that the number of postings here about the war in Iraq has declined. I’ve noticed it, in that I simply haven’t much felt like writing about it. There are several reasons for that.
In one respect it’s because the jury’s still out on the “surge,” though as I have written, I think we all have a pretty good idea of what Gen. Petraeus will say come September. He will declare that we are making progress and must keep up the pressure - for how long is anyone’s guess. But surely we’ll keep right on surging into 2008. And possibly beyond.
There is indeed some evidence to suggest the surge has had an effect; American military fatalities were down in July, though they have soared in these first few days of August. And, of course, the Iraqi parliament indeed went on its August vacation, while nearly all Sunni representatives in the Iraqi government have quit. Would that there was some sort of “surge” that could change the political equation in Iraq, but there isn’t. What we see is what we’re going to continue to get.
And that goes domestically as well. Of the 2008 contenders - those who have a realistic shot, anyway - who among them represents an actual break with the past practices that got us into the Iraqi mess in the first place? Barack Obama is virtually the only one - and he’s being pilloried as insufficiently “serious” on matters of national security by the likes of Hillary. Hillary will be the nominee, and may well be the next president. And I just don’t see that this represents the true shifting of gears, the strategic reiorientation, that I believe this country needs.
That means there are going to be more Iraqs. And I suppose I’m simply getting used to the idea.
Not warming to it, mind you. But frankly, if this is what the American people want - then this is what the American people shall have. The likes of Ron Paul represents little more than shouting in the darkness. Yes, millions of people might agree with his thoughts on the war. But other millions back knee-jerk militarism, believe wholeheartedly in a type of American exceptionalism that justifies everything, think we can somehow subdue a tactic, terrorism, used and destined to continue to be used by the weak against the strong.
We’re on this ride, and for a long time I thought maybe we could get off. But I’m beginning to understand that we can’t get off - and that we wouldn’t even if we could. We all have our roles to play, and our role, as a nation, is to pretend that oil has nothing to do with it, to believe that there is a military solution to everything, to be frightened enough to permit government heretofore unparalleled power to pry into our private lives. To act, and be, the empire that we’ve long claimed not to be.
But empires fall. And I’m convinced that this dedication to our role will absolutely be a factor, and perhaps the most important factor, in our own decline. I was thinking this morning that I’d never linked here what I consider to be the most important essay I’ve ever read - which, as noted in the print edition, actually ran in Pat Buchanan’s American Conservative Magazine - in which Michael Vlahos writes:
Thus the 9/11 attacks were a frontal assault on the American narrative. They were instinctively compared to Pearl Harbor, but we were not the same innocent nation in 2001 that we were in 1941, seemingly minding our own business. In the intervening 60 years, we had built a position that in its narrative splendor was a true world empire. Some even announced that we had triumphantly ended history on our terms. Henceforth only American values reigned.
The attacks were not simply a violation of the national person—as in 1941—but an affront to all that was right and true. Yet its emotional symbolism had a darker side too—the suggestion, felt but unvoiced by Americans, that the attacks were the first black sign of The Fall of the City, the beginning of the end of the American sacred narrative.
Simple retribution would not be enough. We had to utterly destroy the prophecy couched in 9/11 and reassert American predestination. …
America is now tasked with bringing the dark side to submission. But of course we have neither the means nor the will to do so. The Great Muslim War will keep us locked in, so the more we thrash within our story, the more we will undo ourselves. Our narrative has blocked every exit. Escape officially equals retreat, and retreat equals utter defeat. We must never quit the fight—meaning we remain willing participants to our final fall.
That is our role, and that is how the drama ends. And so sometimes it seems pointless to argue against an ending that I believe has already been scripted. I’m sure I will still do so on occasion. But I’ve lost enthusiasm for thinking that we can get anything more than the most meager of rewrites.
