Jewish World Review Dec. 21, 2005 / 20 Kislev, 5766

In Iraq, optimism is our only option

By Tucker Carlson

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | President Bush's approval ratings have risen eight points in the past month, and while they're still low (47 percent, according to the Washington Post), the trend is clear: Bush is getting more popular. The conventional explanation is that a strong economy and a peaceful election in Iraq have allowed voters to forget about Hurricane Katrina and the CIA leak case. But that's only partly right. The main reason more people like Bush, I think, is because he's saying hopeful things about Iraq.

The invasion of Iraq was a horrible mistake. That's my position, and (polls show) the position of most Americans. Even the administration concedes that the central assumption that spurred us to war (that Saddam possessed WMD) was false. No speech can change that fact. For the administration, the debate over why we went to war with Iraq is unwinnable. Bush seems to understand this.

The debate now is over what to do next. In his address Sunday night, Bush described America's choice as one between victory and defeat. You can argue with his logic (stalemate is always an option), but not with his instincts. Bush understands that defeat is what Americans fear most, more than chaos in Iraq, more than an unstable Middle East, more even than thousands of dead U.S. soldiers. An American humiliation in Iraq would be devastating to America. Americans know this, on a gut level if nowhere else.

Bush's answer to our fears is bluster: The war in Iraq is morally just, and we are winning it. Is this in fact true? I have doubts on both counts, but ultimately it doesn't matter. Americans need to believe it. Why? Because self-confidence is the key to national success.

Ask the British, whose empire went from the most powerful on earth (arguably in history) to a footnote in a single generation. The reasons are many and complex, but the precipitating event was the First World War. Not only did that war kill off many of the most capable people in the country (Harrow alone lost 644 graduates; Eton, 1160), it changed the way the British understood themselves. Despite their sacrifice, many in England came to see the war as pointless, an exercise in futility rather than righteousness. Within 30 years, the British Empire had evaporated.

You could spend a career arguing about whether the British Empire was worth preserving. The point is, it perished by suicide not murder. The average Englishman lost confidence that his culture, his religion, his language, his country, was superior to anyone else's. At that point, empire became unsustainable. You can't proselytize if you no longer share the faith.

Whether we admit it or not, America has an empire. We rule the world by rhetoric and economic power and cultural appeal, and only occasionally by force. Other nations defer to us because we seem to know what we're doing, and also to believe in it. The moment we lose faith in our own superiority, it's over. The age of American influence will end. A younger, more ambitious, certainly less altruistic nation will fill the vacuum we leave. America itself will recede to second-tier relevance in global affairs: Canada, but more crowded.

It's a depressing thought, not just for us, but also for the rest of the world. It's bound to happen someday. It'll happen a whole lot sooner if the war in Iraq is perceived by Americans as a disaster.

And so back to Bush. Yes, the war in Iraq is his fault. Yes, he has badly botched the handling of that war. And yes, his predictions of a stable, peaceful and democratic Iraq are almost certainly wildly optimistic. But wild optimism is our only option at the moment. Bush may be making it up, but it's in our interests to believe him.