COMIC, NOT TRAGIC:

George W Bush, tragic character (Spengler, 11/24/03, Asia Times)

It is hard to label "tragic" anyone as cheerful and optimistic as President George W Bush. Perhaps more than any leader in history, Bush is a Christian. Religious conversion is the defining experience of his life, and it is in his nature to convert others. Because he is a 21st-century American and not a 12th-century Crusader, he preaches the ballot box rather than the cross; as I have argued elsewhere (Mahathir is right: Jews do rule the world, October 28) that amounts to the same thing. Telling in this regard was the president's London oration last week. No less than five references to "ideals" and "idealism" showed where his heart lies; recall his campaign declaration that Jesus Christ was his favorite political philosopher.

Mephistopheles introduced himself to Faust as "ein Teil von jener Kraft, die stets das Boese will und stets das Gute schafft. (a part of that power, which always wants to do evil, but always does good)." Reverse this, and you have the tragedy of Bush: he wants universal good, but he will end up doing some terrible things. [...]

"American tragedy" (despite Theodore Dreiser's dreadful novel) is something of an oxymoron, for America is the land of new beginnings. Tragedy invariably takes the form of a shadow from the past darkening the present and future. But something like the River Lethe girds the American continent, through which immigrants forget their past and with it their past tragedies. One might say that the American tragedy is the incapacity of Americans to understand the tragedy of other peoples. America can cherry-pick out of the nations those individuals who wish to be Americans, but it cannot force back on the nations its own character. Its efforts to do so have perpetually destabilizing consequences for other peoples. Not idly does Osama bin Laden denounce Americans as "crusaders".

Spengler is right in so far as he goes, which is nowhere near far enough. America is unquestionably the most lethal and successful military power the world has ever known. But it has framed every one of its wars in messianic terms and has failed to achieve its stated goals in each. The Civil War saved the Union and freed the slaves, but left the South a much despised region and blacks an oppressed minority. In WWI we beat Germany, but left the Bolsheviks in power and the French and the British carving up the Third World. We'd destroyed enough of Germany and Japan in WWII that we felt compelled to help rebuild them, but left the Soviet Union in control of all of Eastern Europe. We more or less managed to contain the Soviets in the Cold War, but never asked ourselves why we weren't forcing them to contract if we really cared about the freedom of other peoples--meanwhile, the Korea and Vietnam wars and the confrontation with Cuba all left communist powers in place. And in the first Iraq War we easily expelled Saddam from Kuwait, but left his brutal regime in place at home. It's a pretty abysmal record.

Now we confront Islam generally and insist that democratic forces be brought to bear on the entire region--via military power and/or political pressure--but there's no reason to believe that we'll stay committed for as long as it takes. Already--just two years after 9-11 and after improbably minimal military losses--the elites and the Democrats have pretty much abandoned ship and as the media, academics, etc. pound away at the war public support always fades too. If you were a betting man, you'd side with Spengler here and say that the clash of civilizations will be called off long before we reach its conclusion and that will indeed be tragic for the folks we leave behind.

However, there are a few caveats that should be mentioned. First, just as in those prior wars, there have already been extensive successes, which are nothing to sneeze at--in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine people have the opportunity to choose more popular governments than they had before this all started. Likewise, from Morocco to Saudi Arabia to Iran and beyond, there's a recognition that if the Islamic world is to provide its people the standard of living and the basic human freedoms they desire, massive reform will have to occur. This is obviously not to say that Iraq will emerge as a full-fledged liberal democracy. It might even slip back into chaos or totalitarian oppression. But its people have an opportunity, unique in their history, to determine their own fate. That's a worthwhile thing.

Meanwhile, it seems Spengler somewhat misses his own point: the necessity of the American tragedy. George W. Bush is more willful, clear-sighted and articulate in his advocacy of democracy than someone like Al Gore would have been, but the fact is that a President Gore would have cast this war in precisely the same light. America is so powerful and so isolated from the world (and has been for so long) that its own self-interest is never really implicated in global wars. In order to rouse the nation to war two things are necessary: a precipitating attack on us, no matter how dubious; and that the war conform to our vision of ourselves, as Spengler says, as crusaders for democracy (though he's quite wrong that we're 21st century crusaders--rather, we are the last 18th century nation). The President, whoever he be, has no choice in his war aims and his rhetoric if he hopes to lead America to world war. We actually believe all that stuff in the Declaration of Independence and think it applies to all men everywhere. We aren't unintentionally destabilizing; it's our national purpose whenever we go abroad (which we only do, John Quincy Adams not withstanding, seeking monsters).

Last week we quoted the Battle Hymn of the Republic--it's worth citing one verse again:

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

That's the kind of vision that does indeed lead to tragedy--precisely because it is so grandiose--but it is also the vision that has made us history's singular nation. That other peoples do not measure up to our vision is a mild tragedy for us, but a great tragedy for them. If the Islamic world is impervious to globalization and remains backwards, corrupt, and totalitarian, it will put a dent in our view of humankind, but it will ruin a billion non-American lives. The American tragedy is minor from that perspective, isn't it?

Last, Spengler (and everyone else) would do well to remember that, for America, these wars can never have a truly tragic ending. We will win the war on Islamicism, one way or another. If the Islamic world chooses not to reform and if attacks recur on our soil then this war will just be waged more brutally. Sure, we're in the midst of the warm fuzzy phase of the war, when we think we can bring democracy to people who must want it, but we've never been terribly bashful about destroying entire nations when they prove resistant to our initial offer. From Sherman's march to the sea to the firebombing, and eventual nuclear bombing, of WWII, we've shown the will to beat people until they have no choice but to change their ways.

The Islamicists could avert this fate by turning their violence totally inwards and waging their war only upon Arab regimes. At that point we'd be quite likely to withdraw altogether and leave Islam to destroy itself, while we enjoyed the kind of free and affluent lives we'd offered to help them realize. That would be tragic to some degree. But it wouldn't be an American tragedy. We might even say that this is the American comedy: people go to war with us, with catadtrophic results for them, when all we really want is to be left alone, or, at worst, to help them be more like us. Who's the loser if they refuse?

MORE:
-ARCHIVES: The Complete Spengler (Asia Times)
-The Break-Fast Club: Kuwaitis think America should be more assertive in the Arab world.
(MATTHEW KAMINSKI, November 21, 2003, Wall Street Journal)

The first stop tonight is the diwaniya run by Mr. Bishara's cousin. As I shake the hands of the dozen men there, I let slip that I'm heading up to Iraq the next day. Braced for a taste of Yankee-bashing, I get an earful of Americanophilia instead. It's soon clear this Ramadan is uniquely joyous: the first without Saddam Hussein, who overran Kuwait in 1990 before Uncle Sam kicked him out half a year later.

Revenge is sweet, and profitable. Hotels are full and business is booming, a USC graduate who runs a catering business tells me. Kuwait's former finance minister, Youssef Ibrahim, whispers in my ear that "being next to Iraq is a golden opportunity." What about all the violence and political trouble? "I have no doubt the Americans will make it work," he says. At least someone's confident.

Between the various stops, Mr. Bishara explains that of all the non-Iraqi Arab states, Kuwait alone can claim first-hand experience of the U.S. and Saddam's Iraq. For that reason, Kuwaitis believe in the U.S. project for remaking Iraq, and the Middle East.

Mr. Bishara does have a gripe, however. "The U.S. made a mistake here," he says, thinking back to the 1991 liberation. "They had a free hand to liberalize this country and instead they packed up their troops and moved out. We had to fight even to restore Parliament."

Today Mr. Bishara heads a pro-democracy group--no easy job in a state ruled by infirm septuagenarian emirs and permeated with a Saudi-style strain of religious and social conservatism. But educated Arabs have no trouble discussing democracy on "our" terms. Along with every Kuwaiti I meet this evening, Mr. Bishara studied in the U.S., getting his undergraduate degree at Columbia during the turbulent 1960s. "Those SDS guys were friends of mine," he says, before insisting that their protest tactics--taking over buildings, holding people hostage--wouldn't translate well to Kuwait.

I ask how a Western-educated liberal can keep his wife from the diwaniyas or let his daughter live in a country as a second-class citizen. He responds with an understanding smile. "My wife wouldn't want to come here," he says, pointing to his roomful of friends at our final destination, a diwaniya organized by the deputy speaker of Kuwait's Parliament. "What's more, she would think it strange if I didn't come here."

In this room, America and democracy come to dominate conversation.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 24, 2003 10:20 AM