MysteriousFaith

Terrorism & Carefulness

Some five years after 9/11 and three after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Americans are befuddled and bewildered over our nation’s response to terrorism. That Iraq was at best tenuously related to the facts under-girding international terrorism is symptomatic of the deeper challenge people wrestle with: if not this, what should we have done? It is no coincidence that Democrats have been wholly inept in their attempts to articulate an opposing strategy; terrorism inherently increases our brittleness and deadens our sensibilities. The amorphous nature of its threat, and the ambiguity of its potential – it seems to be everywhere and yet nowhere – combine to make it a threat which easily triggers our fear.

That America’s political leadership was no better in rising above our collective fear should be troubling to us all. Our leaders are to see that which we can not, have experience we do not have, and learning we have not been able to build. We rely on them for insight and an ability to hold us back from the cliffs we too easily run towards. The reality is that post-9/11 we needed leadership that was able to manage between the perils of over-reaction and the inadequacies of not calling evil that which was, and treating it as such.

Into this void the voice of the opposition has fallen: instead of articulating a clear alternative strategy (the choice not to invade Iraq was clear to many policy pundits and educated people), the Democratic political establishment lined up behind what was politically convenient. It is for this reason that today’s Democratic politicians have no clout with the American people, and properly so.

We now know that within the military, generals such as General Abizaid feared U.S. forces would become an “antibody” within the Iraqi people. Lost in the speculation about what the administration really knew, what they spun out of any sense of proportionality, and what they outright politicized, is the fact that basic questions of whether invading Iraq would make us safer, whether it would address the core structural issues which allow terrorism to grow inside a particular culture, and whether democracy can be imposed by an invading army were overlooked.

The Bush Administration can be faulted for many things, but a lack of will power and a clear sense of direction are not two of its problems. Granted, the will power is improperly directed and its sense of direction lacks cultural sensibilities, historical awareness, and philosophical integrity. But Bush is directed: what a shame that his pathological will power could not have been applied to a more nuanced strategy. Given nuance is inherently coupled with complexity, bluntness was likely the order of the day. What a tragedy that a man of such one-dimensional capability was not directed towards another approach to terrorism – one that urged caution, carefulness and deliberation.

Such a strategy would not have meant abdicating the use of force. It may not have prevented an invasion within Afghanistan. But it would have honed in on building a success story inside Afghani borders that future foreign policy initiatives could have been based upon. Much has been said about Bush as a businessman – his operatives and allies emphasizing how this experience makes him a unique voice within government. Yet any successful businessman knows that a new strategy, product or business plan requires locating a beachhead and driving deep. Execution is what matters, at some level more than conceptualization. It is this intense pragmatism that people expected from Bush, and yet in Iraq and our general policies after 9/11, we have seen no such focus.

Is this what we see from Bush in Iraq? This administration made so many conceptual errors that little clarity seems to come from wrestling with why they were so off-point; strangely, this very fact is a part of what makes it so hard to put Bush in his rightful place. The minute someone brings up Cheney’s famous remark about being greeted as liberators our attention is diverted by a plea to democracy being “messy.”

Even fears over the burgeoning sectarian civil war in Iraq are downplayed as somehow being within the trajectory of democratization: after all, did not America have its own civil war? What Democrats seem to be unable to say is that yes, democracy is messy and yes, we had our own civil war. But we survived this messiness through leaders who called for clarity and executed the war with efficiency. Such a position would require that Democrats be able to state what an efficient prosecution of the war would mean: say once and say clearly that monthly deaths in Baghdad alone of 1,900 per month (90% by execution squad) are unacceptable, and that to rescind the violence we must draw up our forces and put more resources into Iraq.

This will not happen within the Democratic party because it is deeply confused. The intelligent position that leaving Iraq now surely leaves behind a much more troubling Middle East and the equally resonant humanitarian position which states that leaving now after we messed Iraq up so badly is ethically wrong drives one part of the Democratic party. The other side of the party is affiliated so heavily with the MoveOn.org crowd that it cannot begin to think clearly about how we deal with the situation we are in.

All of this makes the need for carefulness in the face of terrorism essential. Terrorism plays on a part of our collective and individual psyche that makes us willing to do what we know to be unintelligent and immoral because we do not feel safe. Carefulness would have picked a strategy and emphasized those factors which would have made it practically effective. Afghanistan would have become a first-world wonder before we ever stepped off into another country. The Israeli-Palestinian issue would have been dealt with as a political reality that feeds the vitriol of modern Islamic fundamentalism. Our leadership would have intellectually engaged Muslim culture in an attempt to articulate the changes they must make and the lessons we have learned. Economic policies beyond those unique to the petrochemical industry would have been designed and implemented.

Instead of care, we showed belligerence. Rather than nuance, we embraced force. And in the face of a culture which needs reasons to believe we want the best for them and that we can be trusted, we destabilized their own backyard and tore apart our own moral clarity. The Iraq war is many things, but its illustration of the lack of competent leadership within America may be the most prescient of lessons.

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• September 26, 2006

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