TURN TO PAGE 1776 IN YOUR HYMNAL:

Nothing to lose but their chains: Michael Ledeen says that our most potent weapon in the war against terrorism is democracy: people everywhere want to be free (Michael Ledeen, 11/22/03, The Spectator)

The most controversial part of George W. Bush's vision of the war against terrorism is his insistence that this is a war against tyranny, and that we will not be able to win the war until we have helped democratic revolutions succeed in the key countries, those that provide the terrorists with much of their vital wherewithal. It's controversial for varying reasons, depending on the critic. Some say that countries are marginal in the terror universe; it's transnational organisations like al-Qa'eda which we must defeat. Others are upset because they think the President is declaring war on any country, anywhere, that helps the terrorists, and they ask where the money and the troops will come from. Still others are critical of Bush's belief that the Middle East can be successfully democratised at all, and wish that the United States would either give up this crazy dream, or get serious about building an empire and find proper viceroys, etc. [...]

I think we are on the verge of the same kind of revolutionary transformation in the Middle East today. The real question is not whether it can be done, but whether we have the will to do it. We haven't been very good in Afghanistan, where American negotiators unaccountably agreed to the creation of an 'Islamic Republic' when we should have vetoed the very idea. We haven't been nearly as active as we should have been in embracing the Iraqis, who have proved many of the pessimists totally wrong: there hasn't been a religious or ethnic civil war, the Iraqi Shiites have not been manipulated by the Iranians, and there are plenty of talented and educated Iraqis who, given the chance, could do a thoroughly presentable job of managing their country. We're getting better, but the people of the region are running ahead of us whenever they can. There was a brief 'Prague Spring' in Damascus after the death of the old tyrant, but it was crushed soon after. I don't think it will be that difficult to find suitably democratic forces in Syria in the future, especially if we deal effectively with Iran.

The main thing is to see the situation plainly: we are at war with a group of tyrants who sponsor a network of terrorists. Our most potent weapon against them is their own people, who hate them and wish to be free. We don't need to invade Iran or Syria or Saudi Arabia, but we certainly need to support the calls for freedom coming from within those tyrannical countries.

And that's the Dubya Doctrine.

The kids were marching around the house today to the tunes of a Walt Disney cd of patriotic songs and the Battle Hymn of the Republic came on--long version:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on."

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

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.

The thought occurred: George W. Bush's democratic messianism is of rather ancient vintage, isn't it.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 22, 2003 6:54 AM