THE WANDERER, August 3, 2006
JOSEPH SOBRAN'S
WASHINGTON WATCH
The Bush Aberration
Not since the 1968 Tet offensive has the news made
me feel so confused and dispirited. It's easier to say
what should have been done -- or not done -- than what
should be done now.
The Founders of the American Republic counseled us
to maintain neutrality, now disparaged as isolationism,
in foreign broils. It wasn't that they thought all
foreign powers were wrong; just the opposite.
Every state might have plausible reasons for making
war, but that was exactly the problem. Their reasons,
however appealing, need not be our reasons; and it was
unlikely that their interests should often coincide with
ours. Let them fight without us!
But since the days of Woodrow Wilson we have been
taught that it is both our interest and our duty to side
with democracies abroad. In any conflict, the democratic
side must be right; for, as Condoleezza Rice keeps
reminding us, "Democracies don't start wars." If you
believe that a priori, everything is immediately
simplified. Israel is a democracy, so in its latest war
we must take Israel's side.
But having abandoned neutrality, the United States
is in no position to broker the diplomatic settlement
Rice hopes to negotiate. Both the Bush administration and
Congress have quickly expressed their support for the
violent Israeli assault on Lebanon, which Hezbollah has
made its base for rocket attacks on Israeli cities.
Most of the world agrees that the Israeli assault is
wildly excessive, but the Israelis argue that under
international law Lebanon, by failing to control
Hezbollah, has become responsible for those rockets and
for any innocent carnage resulting from measures the
Israelis deem necessary for their defense. So, as a
democracy defending itself, Israel becomes America's dog
in this fight.
And once again the United States finds itself
entangled and ineffectual in the most violent region on
earth. Not only that, but the world holds America largely
responsible for a bitter conflict we all deplore. O for
the placid era of Yitzhak Shamir and Yassir Arafat!
To be sure, Hezbollah is supported by Iran, which
may well have instigated the latest trouble to deflect
attention from its nuclear program. But was this
unforeseeable? Did the administration think the Iranians
were just going to sit still and endure more American
scoldings for their misbehavior?
Never assume that your enemies are without resource.
Iran is too big and too cunning to be bullied.
I'm always wary of the Israelis, but that doesn't
mean I trust their enemies, and for some days,
remembering how we reacted to the 9/11 attacks, I was
willing to give Israel the benefit of a doubt, as far as
their own safety was concerned.
By the same token, though, I didn't expect them to
consider whether their actions were beneficial to us.
Right or wrong, their fight is not ours. We have more
than enough enemies now, and fewer allies than ever.
Never was prudence more urgent, or less in evidence.
Maybe there is no justice in this world, but there
is certainly hubris, and there is its usual reward,
Nemesis.
As William Schwenck Gilbert once complained to the
president of a railroad, "Sir: Sunday morning, though
recurring at frequent and well-established intervals,
always seems to take this railway by surprise."
In the same way, Nemesis always seems to take this
country by surprise.
So here we go again. We intervene on the other side
of the world, where the only thing worse than war is
peace, and we are shocked to find things beyond our
control.
Independent Iraq
And having installed a brand-new democracy in Iraq,
we are unpleasantly taken aback when Nouri al-Maliki, the
brand-new prime minister of our brand-new ally, condemns
the Israeli action during his first official visit to
Washington.
We wanted Iraq to be independent, but perhaps not
quite =that= independent. When he addressed Congress,
several congressmen boycotted his speech.
This put President Bush in yet another awkward
situation (he must be getting used to them), and Maliki
quickly got the word to tone it down.
Only Rush Limbaugh still thinks the Iraq war is
going well; even other conservatives are deserting Bush
now. Bill Buckley has opined that Bush is no conservative
and that his disastrous failure in Iraq, were he a
European prime minister, would have compelled his
resignation.
Surely the Republic's Founders would be astonished
to find their country so impossibly mired in the Muslim
world, to say nothing of its fantastic debt and
semi-socialist economy.
Less than halfway through his second term, Bush
seems intent on completing America's ruin. Not that he
has done it alone, but it's hard to imagine how a single
man could have done more to aggravate the damage he
inherited.
To say that Bush has failed as a president is to
understate the matter. He has booby-trapped the
presidency for his successors. How can they hope to
repair what he has wrought? Even without war and military
spending, his new Medicare entitlements can't be paid for
by marginal tax cuts; barring a miracle, they ensure
generations of spiraling debt.
If the immediate future looks bleak, the long-range
future looks even worse.
Wasted Assets
Grim as the prospect of Democratic rule may be, it
seems probable that the Republicans' political hegemony
is finished. Seldom if ever has a party wasted its assets
as rapidly as the GOP has since 2004, or lost the aura of
invincibility so suddenly. If the Democrats can reverse
their fortunes in this fall's elections, even another
impeachment is possible.
As long as I'm spreading good cheer, allow me to
suggest a silver lining. Party loyalty needn't mean
following your leader over a cliff. Bush is so completely
discredited that I see only one way for the Republicans
to recoup: by repudiating him the way the Democrats
disowned Lyndon Johnson by nominating George McGovern in
1972. Pretend he never happened.
Once the Republicans make it clear that they agree
that George W. Bush was an aberration, they can begin to
recover. This may mean enduring a period of Democratic
dominance, but the Democrats themselves will see to it
that this doesn't last long if the voters have an
alternative.
I once predicted that Republicans would eventually
urge us to return to the conservative values of Bill
Clinton. I just didn't expect it to happen quite so soon!
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--- Joseph Sobran
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