The argument between the left and right is not about the dots; it's about how we connect them. A big part of the problem, of course, is that in matters of public policy the dots themselves are pretty slippery, and you can argue endlessly about whether a dot is really a dot. So it's easy for the dots to become secondary to the ideology we are inclined to accept as the most effective dot connector.
But it’s interesting how long it’s possible for an ideology to resist recognizing that certain dots exist because they don’t fit into the ideological template. It’s also interesting how very often a dot that really isn’t there seems real if it fills in a blank spot on the template. Propaganda works because because we want to believe whatever conforms to our preexisting ideas abut the way things are even if what we are told is untrue. And we resist propaganda (or the truth) to the degree that what is proposed does not fit into our pre-existing template.
I think to a large degree this describes how we got ourselves involved in Iraq. There's a difference of opinion about how cynical the motives of the architects of the invasion were. It could be that they were deliberately lying and twisting the truth to promote a justification for the war most Americans would support. It could also be that they were so sincerely convinced of the righteousness of their cause that it became a template that prevented them from seeing the dots that didn't fit into it. I think it's possible that they really thought that Saddam was buying yellowcake from Niger. They wanted to believe it so badly that it became in their minds the truth.
But overall I think it was a mix of both cynicism and credulity. It's clear that no matter what their motives, their judgment about what they could achieve was profoundly flawed because of their blind spots. They thought they knew better. They thought they connected the dots in the most effective way, but now it's clear that there were too many dots that they didn't see or dismissed as irrelevant.
I don't know that this invasion of Iraq could have succeeded if any one else had led it, but it is abundantly clear, if it wasn't in 2002, that this particular group was doomed to failure from the beginning. They were flawed both in motive and in judgment. Their motives, like those of any human being, were mixed. I don't expect to find purity of motive in anyone, but look rather to discern whether their is preponderance of motive that is just or unjust. And with this group of neocons I believe the preponderant motive was vainglory and powerlust, and only secondarily to fight terrorism.
Their judgment was flawed because clearly they did not understand what they were getting into; they were blinded by both their militarist ideology and by their vainglory. But powerlust and vainglory do not necessarily lead to failure. There have been too many successful tyrants through the ages who were far shrewder than the neocons directing policy now in the White House. This group is doubly foolish, both with regard to motive and their ability to develop an effective strategy to accomplish their goals.
That's what rankles people like Bill Kristol and other promoters of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) who saw this as an historical opportunity for the assertion of American power in this strategically critical area of the world. After the fall of the Soviet Empire, a power vacuum was created, and the oil fields of Iraq were there for the taking. They would invade to insure that these fields would become more productive. Iraq would be made into a democratic city shining on a hill, a model for all the Middle East to emulate, and the U.S. would become the benign, tough-loving big daddy caliph to the world effecting a new global order and a Pax Americana.
That's the delusional, vainglorious part and I think lots of the neocons sincerely believed that what they were doing was in the best interests of world order. But this group of incompetents blew it, and now American prestige is lower than it's been since the Vietnam War, and they've created a bigger mess in the Middle East than they found before they invaded. I'm sure there are lots of true believers in the PNAC vision of the future who still think that this could have been pulled off.
Ideologies are essentially mythologies, narratives that for whatever reason each of us have adopted that explain how the world works—or should work. What we're doing in the Middle East right now is a reenactment of the Ur-myth of redemptive violence found in the Enuma Elish which was first articulated in Mesopotamia where it's now being acted out with such brutality.
There's a part of me, the hopeful part, that thinks that maybe this myth has come full circle, and we will all see how it leads to futility and needless destruction. It was a myth that understood power in the most primitive way, and now in an interdependent globalizing world it's a myth that has become dysfunctional. We've got to come up with something better, but you just don't make up myths; they have to be rooted in deeply grounded transcendent truth. Myth, Narrative, ideology, mental template–whatever you want to call it–we've got to come up with a better one than this tired old story that blinds us to new possibility. I believe the resources to do it are there, hidden, but ready to be retrieved. So much depends on whether, one way or another, we do it.
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