And that is one of the huge problems at the root of this whole mess. One of the binding, informing narratives at the core of the American mind is the idea that the Good Guys Always Win. There may be ugly set-backs, there may be moments when it appears there's no way to stop the villain's nefarious schemes, but in the end the side of Right and Truth will always prevail.
And given the assumption of our president and the rest of his crowd that Of Course we are the Good Guys in this war, simply because the other side is so shockingly violent, it's a wonder we're not in a worse mess. When you know that you're on the side of the angels, you don't feel the need to examine your actions and assumptions.
I'd argue that we are the Good Guys, but it was dangerously naive overconfidence on the part of both President and people that the Good Guys always win. History is full of Good Guys who failed, for a variety of reasons ranging from insufficient resources to poorly chosen strategies.
What's worse, the American assumption that the Good Guys always win has a dark side -- it leads to us assuming that whoever won must have been Good Guys (leading to an inability to understand wars in which both sides are Bad Guys, such as the Russo-German War of 1941-45), and that whoever lost must have been a Bad Guy (leading to our self-flagellation after the fall of South Vietnam).
In the specific case, George W. Bush seems to have selected his military strategies based on the assumption that he had an infinite amount of political support and thus time for this war, so therefore our superior resources would inevitably prevail. I don't think that invading Iraq in 2003 was a mistake; I do think that failing to invade Iran in 2005 was a very serious mistake. By letting America be bogged down in Iraq he dissipated his momentum.
We are now in a situation where the only way we can win is if either (1) Bush is willing to go to strategic bombardment of Iran in response to the Iranian attacks into Iraq, which seems too ruthless for Bush, or (2) Iran makes the monumental era of committing a 9/11 scale atrocity against the American homeland, which means making a big mistake.
The cost of losing this war will be severe. In the short run, it will mean a rise of anti-Semitism and misogyny around the world. In the middle run, it will mean a Second Terrorist War, which will probably be nuclear. And in the long run, it means a greater chance of the decline of the Republic into an Empire, because of the cruel things we shall have to do in the Second war.
Re: splitting Iraq
And given the assumption of our president and the rest of his crowd that Of Course we are the Good Guys in this war, simply because the other side is so shockingly violent, it's a wonder we're not in a worse mess. When you know that you're on the side of the angels, you don't feel the need to examine your actions and assumptions.
I'd argue that we are the Good Guys, but it was dangerously naive overconfidence on the part of both President and people that the Good Guys always win. History is full of Good Guys who failed, for a variety of reasons ranging from insufficient resources to poorly chosen strategies.
What's worse, the American assumption that the Good Guys always win has a dark side -- it leads to us assuming that whoever won must have been Good Guys (leading to an inability to understand wars in which both sides are Bad Guys, such as the Russo-German War of 1941-45), and that whoever lost must have been a Bad Guy (leading to our self-flagellation after the fall of South Vietnam).
In the specific case, George W. Bush seems to have selected his military strategies based on the assumption that he had an infinite amount of political support and thus time for this war, so therefore our superior resources would inevitably prevail. I don't think that invading Iraq in 2003 was a mistake; I do think that failing to invade Iran in 2005 was a very serious mistake. By letting America be bogged down in Iraq he dissipated his momentum.
We are now in a situation where the only way we can win is if either (1) Bush is willing to go to strategic bombardment of Iran in response to the Iranian attacks into Iraq, which seems too ruthless for Bush, or (2) Iran makes the monumental era of committing a 9/11 scale atrocity against the American homeland, which means making a big mistake.
The cost of losing this war will be severe. In the short run, it will mean a rise of anti-Semitism and misogyny around the world. In the middle run, it will mean a Second Terrorist War, which will probably be nuclear. And in the long run, it means a greater chance of the decline of the Republic into an Empire, because of the cruel things we shall have to do in the Second war.
So I hope that we win.