The Pendulum
One of the interesting features of our political debate today is how, increasingly, those on the Right are the idealists and those on the Left and center are defenders of traditional political values. In this reversal of roles, the Right has very comfortably adopted the high moral tone used by progressive activists in decades past, while liberals – speaking for myself at least – are having a somewhat harder time coming to grips with our inner Goldwaters.
Nowhere is this more evident than with the situation in Iraq. Since it now appears increasingly certain, despite hysterical spinning and sputtering denials, that Saddam possessed far fewer means of creating, much less deploying, weapons of mass destruction than even the fiercest critics of the war would have estimated, Bush’s post-facto case relies increasingly on two novel justifications.
The first is the “Saddam is a bad guy” argument. This is true as far as it goes. He was clearly a sick thug and a terror to his people. They, if not we, are probably better off without him unless things continue to go down the toilet during the occupation and post-occupation. Now there is precedent for foreign intervention in the name of humanitarian causes: Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo during Clinton’s watch, Somolia and Panama (maybe) under the first Bush, Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia to topple Pol Pot in the late 70s (a move feverishly opposed by the United States, incidentally). Every one of these actions, however, was undertaken to stop an acute crisis in progress that threatened to draw the neighboring region into wider conflict. They were limited in scope, generally undertaken with international support, and, incidentally, were not a drain on American resources at a time when there were other significant priorities.
The idea that it is justified to unilaterally launch a full-scale unprovoked war with no pre-existing crisis conditions purely on human rights grounds is a proposition that would make even Jimmy Carter blush. And yet, those who question the altruistic intentions of toppling Saddam strictly because of his brutality are accused of being "soft on tyranny." Even if we take this argument at face value – which we shouldn’t, because it’s utterly bogus and pretextual – there is a principled position that suggests that it is irresponsible and unfeasible to unilaterally commit American forces to overthrow any regime that doesn’t get a clean bill of health from Amnesty International. Such a position used to be called “conservative” in that it was both cautious and realistic. Interesting how the poles have shifted.
The second argument is even more visionary. This is the “make the Middle East safe for democracy” line. It’s true that in several cases, the victors in war were successful in imposing something resembling democratic governments on defeated powers whose previous regimes were autocratic. But in no case was the war undertaken in the first place for those reasons (and in no case were those countries in the Middle East). Occupation and the reconstitution of foreign governments was a task forced upon the United States and others as a result of having defeated aggressive powers in the course of pitched battles. It’s not something even Woodrow Wilson would have signed up for as a project on its own merits.
But again, to justify the colossal blunder of the Iraqi adventure, the Right tries hard to side with the angels, painting those opposed to this line as hopeless pessimists at best and anti-democratic cultural bigots at worst. Everyone wants democracy, right? So a war to extend democracy is a good thing. And again, it’s left to the progressives and centrists to play the stern parent and raise the troubling questions about imposing democracy and “freedom” on people who were, on their own, content to live under one corrupt and autocratic regime after another back into the mists of history, simply to indulge our own moral, economic and geopolitical fantasies.
This, by the way, from the party that, within living memory, elected Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush and lionized Henry Kissinger – all of whom now shine as beacons of good sense and responsibility in the face of this. It’s not a matter of being pro-democratic, I’m sure they would say; it’s a matter of doing what’s possible and realistic with the maximum odds of success. America is a powerful country with a powerful vision of freedom to inspire the world, but we’re not omnipotent and there’s something fundamentally flawed with the notion of imposing our values at the point of a gun. Funny, it used to be called “conservative” to not roll the dice with American troops and credibility on fools’ errands.
In the sixties, the radical left was not content to work within the system. They wanted to remake the world according to new rules. It’s an appealing fantasy. But if there’s one thing the 20th century has taught us, it’s to distrust revolutionaries. Institutions and interests persist for a reason. When it’s time for them to change, they die a natural death – eaten through from within by their own flaws and contradictions. Sometimes they over-reach and are brought down through contact with external factors that are more vibrant and strong. Progress, material betterment and the spread of freedom all happen, but it’s an organic process – nurtured through changing consciousness, education, growing ambitions and aspirations. Hurrying it along through violence only produces hideous distortions, as revolutionary fervor fades and old habits of dark human nature replant themselves in new, untilled earth.
All of this is the wisdom of true conservatism. It has a lot to teach us, as even this Howard Dean Democrat is happy to confess. Too bad those who call themselves “conservative” have decided to abandon it for the folly of radical idealism. Radicalism ill-suits their temperaments; but worst of all, it ill-suits the interests of the real world.
8:38:30 AM 
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