Why we are going to lose the argument to the Anti-War Folks
If you have been reading my stuff for a while, you should have noticed a pessimistic streak. I do tend that way, a trait that can be helpful, and then again not
I have spent the last couple of years watching the argument about Bush's strategy for the War on Terror, and have come to the conclusion that it is not going to hold out. It has for this long, but it is going to implode in the face of it's own structural weakness, the inherent institutional weakness of the American political systems and the unremitting attacks on the strategy by both anti-war folks, the MSM, and the world at large. I cannot see anything else happening, and invite anyone to try and change my mind.
Let me explain, so that weaknesses in my logic can be pointed out.
Initially we deal with the inherent weakness of the argument. Lawyers hate defending the least worst scenario. It's a weak position, because definitionally your argument is weak.
Bush's argument about the War on Terror has always been the least worst solution. That is not his fault. The Western world has been kicking the problem of Islamic Facism down the road for decades. One the one hand this is understandable, on the other it was shortsighted. Once technology caught up with us, and made nukes and other horrors available, the problem became one that we could no longer ignore. Especially in the harsh light of 9/11, although many people had been warning since the early 80's.
But the light of 9/11 revealed a problem that was far bigger then we could deal with in light of current political considerations. In fact the problem may be insoluble regardless of political considerations.
The problem, in a nutshell, consisted of Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, N. Korea, Syria, Afghanistan, and a number of others. The problem was that all these nations were working, either together loosely, or by themselves to create a WMD armed Islamic Fascist entity. I realize that this is oversimplified, but it basically holds.
This has to be prevented, especially in light of 9/11. The problem, of course is how? Bush chose the strategy of taking down Afghanistan first and then turning to Iraq, believing that this would have a braking effect on the efforts of the others. At least, that is what I see the strategy as being. The problem is that the strategy is not all that great, but is forced onto the Administration by political and pragmatic considerations.
After all, we could not turn to the UN. I think the deficiences of that body are well documented, and we could not have stopped the WMD race through them. The Europeans are constitutionally incapable of helping us. I think they have been militarily defanged, and without fangs, diplomacy is useless. There would, of course, be economic leverage, but this is dissipated by Oil.
Thus, outside of attackign with everything we have, something that is not politically or pragmatically possible, we are forced to deal with the puzzle a piece at a time. That would be fine, if time were not so short.
The other problem is that this piecemeal approach is vunerable to attack because it is the least worse solution. Who likes to slog through the worst solution? No human I know. It gets especially tough because the solution is highly susceptable to being nitpicked to death. After all, it's not like the solution is perfect. It makes it even worse when the political considerations make rejoinder to the nitpicking impossible for the proponent.
The Bush Administration faces a number of political considerations when advancing its argument. To be sure, the Administration has not done the best job at advancing its argument, but the obstacles must be recognized.
The first dehabilitating one is the fundamental assertion that our prior diplomatic and military efforts have been completely flawed when dealing with this situation. The Administration simply cannot come out and say that. There must be continuity between Administrations for a number of other reasons, and there is because the State Department employees and CIA employees and others survive from one Administration to the next. Changing the minds of those entities takes time, something we do not have in surplus.
The next problem is the electorate. The Bush Adminstration is faced with the competing demands of educating the electorate, while trying to keep its strategy somewhat quiet. Naturally while educating the electorate, the Administration will face a hostile media, and hostile opposition. And in addition to the hostile elements, the Administration must make the argument of Islamic Facism, without crossing institutional redlines. By this, I mean that the Administration must consider popular values such as tolerance, open-mindedness, and diversity that have been instilled into the population for decades now. For a thorough dissertation see Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom.
The Administration had to make a case for prosecuting an action against Islamic elements that were, in my opinion, hopelessly entangled with mainstream elements of the Islamic religion. We, as Americans, seem incapable of this discussion without lasping into generalities about tolerance for divergent viewpoints. It's become institutional in our opinion making process, and I see no way around it. It's the downside of the tolerance injected into out system. We respect all divergent viewpoints, even when that viewpoint wants to kill us all.
This institutional flaw allows those opposed to this strategy to attack it without having to suggest an alternative. If the opposition had a better alternative, they would have already won this fight. I am also open to better alternatives.
However, looking at public opinion, I think it is clear that we cannot keep fighting the least worst alternative, especially when it is losing. I think we are going to be unable to stop Iran and N. Korea from exploding a nuke. The problem is that if we lose this argument, we will be forced back into doing nothing. And while we do nothing, the Islamo-Facists will be busy. They will force us into the next move. I fear that our hand will be forced by a large scale chemical or nuclear attack.
At that point, it's all out war.
So please, point out where I am wrong?
 posted by pittspilot at 01:12 PM | Comments (2)
|
blaster
