by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
National Review Online<\/em><\/p>\n For the past two years we have lamented the rise of a supposedly new doctrine of preemption \u2014 or whether the United States should hit inveterate enemies while they are still vulnerable and have not yet finalized their plans to strike America. The debate arose around, but also transcended, the wisdom of invading Iraq. The possibility of preemption seemed to question the very nature of American morality \u2014 as if somehow Mr. Bush had taken the United States in a new and unfortunate direction. Reasonable observers pointed out that preemption was not unknown to recent American presidents, especially with regard to Grenada, Panama, Kosovo, and Iraq in 1998. Yet still the impression was established that Mr. Bush had done something new \u2014 and that this supposed departure was, for the most part, very bad indeed.<\/span><\/p>\n Then came these 9\/11 hearings in the midst of war, and a most surprising new thesis was advanced. A Clinton administration that had done very little to retaliate during some eight years of terrorist attacks and provocations was now seen as less culpable than the newly inaugurated Bush team. About-face critics alleged that the latter, in its initial dozen weeks of governance, had not properly digested intelligence data, steeled its will \u2014 and, yes,\u00a0preempted<\/i>\u00a0the terrorists by sending American troops far abroad to kill them before they could kill us.Apparently, the notoriously preemptory Mr. Bush was now to be condemned as not preemptory enough<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n For most of late 2002 and early 2003, many of these same critics decried America’s supposedly imperial obsession with the petroleum reserves of the Middle East. Our war with Iraq (“no blood for oil”) was emblematic of American machinations to steal a nation’s natural treasure or at least rig the circumstances of its exploitation. And then suddenly war came. In victory, Iraqi oil was put under the transparent auspices of the Iraqi people \u2014 even as some surrounding Gulf sheiks were furious at American efforts to bring not dictatorship but democratic reform to the Middle East.<\/span><\/p>\n The result? The price of gas skyrocketed, in part because at least some Gulf OPEC autocratic states vented by cutting production. America was shown in fact to have had little influence concerning, much less any control of, the very petroleum that lay beneath the country it now occupied and had bled for. Suddenly Mr. Kerry and other senators decried not the worry over petroleum theft but the spikes in energy prices, demanding redress from the administration. Apparently Mr. Bush, the one-time unilateralist who had turned a deaf ear to Arab entreaties and had been too tough with Arab regimes, now suddenly was not unilateral enough with such greedy despots. Indeed, he was to be condemned\u00a0for not confronting those about oil whom he had already “unnecessarily” once confronted purportedly over oil<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n The great flaw in the reconstruction of Iraq, we were told, was this nebulous word “security.” Apparently that meant the inability of the United States to guarantee safety to civilian contractors and everyday Iraqis from insurrectionists who killed and bombed and then melted away into an apparently friendly mosque, police uniform, or civilian population. But then recently the resistance emerged in the light of day, confident that it could take control of the country. Instead, the terrorists were taken up on their foolish offer of conflict \u2014 and soundly defeated, and at times even decimated in the light of day.<\/span><\/p>\n Suddenly, supposedly invincible cells and cabals were lamenting their losses in the hundreds and seeking truces, taking hostages \u2014 anything other than continuing the fight that they had once boasted so eagerly to have wanted.\u00a0The old mantra that we were not providing security against terrorists was replaced by a new one that we were killing too many terrorists<\/i>. Western television crews went from filming the past scenes of burned-out humvees and bombed-out police stations to new images of the graveyards outside town, where hundreds of “civilians” were now being buried to purportedly widespread lamentation. Is there any general explanation for all these contradictions? I think very little other than the general lesson that we can draw about a rather humane, affluent, and leisured society after September 11 finding itself confused and in a baffling war against medieval enemies it thought were not supposed to be around in the 21st century. Who, after all, wishes to relax on the sofa to watch\u00a0The Apprentice<\/i>\u00a0or\u00a0Extreme Makeover<\/i>\u00a0\u2014 and then channel surf to images of barbarians promising to roast and eat Japanese aid workers or scenes of charred bodies being dissected by Attila’s modern-day spiritual successors?<\/span><\/p>\n Apparently, even after 9\/11, we trust that we really are so strong and so competent that our military can provide us with the (false) assurance that American soldiers alone \u2014 without our own engagement, consistency, or sacrifice \u2014 can stop such savages from once more crossing the Rhine and Danube to mass murder us. So here at home in Rome, in our world of utopian perfection and material surfeit, we fiddle in hearing rooms and in focus groups while our enemies burn \u2014 on the assumption that there is no room for human error, that hindsight is always perfect, that the messy choices of the present are never between bad and worse, and that humans are always expected to be godlike rather than fallible.<\/span><\/p>\n The truth is that in the past 20 years there were plenty of signs that terrorists, cruel and fanatical, planned to kill thousands of Americans. Yet to marshal the forces to preempt them in a time of peace was felt by most to be politically suicidal \u2014 at least at a time when Americans under no circumstances wished inconvenience, much less war. Had Clinton invaded Afghanistan after the\u00a0USS Cole<\/i>\u00a0attack, rightists might have lynched him for diverting attention from Monica. And had Mr. Bush after the Florida fiasco entered office promising a massive attack on the Taliban, congressional Democrats would have pursued their own articles of impeachment.<\/p>\n By the same token, we want cheap gas, but neither wish to drill for it on our own precious soil (where wells at least can be developed in a far more environmentally conscious fashion than they can abroad, without our careful scrutiny) nor to curb our tastes for extravagant and uneconomical behemoth cars.<\/span><\/p>\n We are glad when dictators fall like Milosevic, the Taliban, and Saddam did. But we all prefer that they tumble spontaneously \u2014 even though we accept privately that such is never the case in this present unipolar world, where all the smug talk about the U.N., EU, and multilateralism means absolutely nothing without the will and skill of the American military. So let us feel terrible aboutnot preempting<\/i>\u00a0the genocide in Rwanda; let us hate ourselves for\u00a0belatedly preempting<\/i>\u00a0in vain to save a quarter-million Bosnians and Kosovars in the Balkans; and then let us be ashamed even more that we\u00a0finally really were preempting<\/i>\u00a0to take out a mass-murderer in Iraq \u2014 and let us scream and slur about all this all at once!<\/span><\/p>\n Deep down we know that some sort of freedom is what most Iraqis want \u2014 and what Islamic extremists in and outside Iraq most fear. But we wish its creation to proceed flawlessly without loss of blood or treasure. And at all times we insist on gratitude from those we aid, who are humbled, perhaps even furious, because we are giving them precisely what they seek \u2014 but also what in the past they lacked the resources, skill, or courage to obtain on their own.<\/span><\/p>\n What a weird war we are in. The president of the United States gives a press conference to steel our will and endures mostly inane cross examination \u2014 at the very time the\u00a0New York Times<\/i>\u00a0best-seller list has five of its top ten books alleging that he is a near criminal. Various disgruntled, passed-over or fired employees (Clarke and O’Neill), buffoonish provocateurs (Franken), and conspiracists (Phillips and Unger) all assure us in their pulp of everything from Bush family ties with Nazis to a First Family perennially plotting to get Americans killed for nothing other than cheap oil.<\/span><\/p>\n If that was not enough, a U.S. senator, with a reprehensible record of personal excess and abject immorality, now in his dotage damns the war in Iraq on moral grounds \u2014 even as young Marines seek to protect a nascent and tottering consensual government from thugs and killers. An ex-president who calibrated his campaign for a Nobel Prize by criticizing his successor in a time of war to the applause of foreign powers now steps forward to call for a more principled nation. Such are the moralists of our age.<\/p>\n Are we crazy? I think in fact we almost are. But the tragedy is that if we are paradoxical, self-incriminatory, and at each other’s throats, our enemies most surely are not. They know precisely what they want from us \u2014 an Islamic world of the 8th century, parasitic on the resources and technology of the 21st, by which all the better to destroy a supposedly soft and bickering West. And if the present chaos here at home continues, they are apparently on the right track.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a9 2004 Victor Davis Hanson<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Inconsistency is the order of the day. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online For the past two years we have lamented the rise of a supposedly new doctrine of preemption \u2014 or whether the United States should hit inveterate enemies while they are still vulnerable and have not yet finalized their plans to strike […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[803],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1et","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4779,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/words-that-dont-matter\/","url_meta":{"origin":4741,"position":0},"title":"Words That Don’t Matter","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 27, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"The new buss vocabulary of anti-Americanism. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online \u201cPreemption\" is supposed to be the new slur. Its use now conjures up all sorts of Dr. Strangelove images to denigrate the present \"trigger-happy\" Bush administration. Partly the hysteria is due to the invasion of Iraq. Or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "February 2004"","block_context":{"text":"February 2004","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2004\/february-2004\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4030,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/has-ahamadinejad-miscalculated\/","url_meta":{"origin":4741,"position":1},"title":"Has Ahamadinejad Miscalculated?","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 7, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The Iranian president better sober up and do some cool reckoning. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online We are now acquainted with the familiar scenario: Iran is supposedly poised to become another disaster like Iraq. The United States, bruised in Iraq, needs redemption, and so will either press onto\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "April 2006"","block_context":{"text":"April 2006","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2006\/april-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4784,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/just-imagine\/","url_meta":{"origin":4741,"position":2},"title":"Just Imagine . . .","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 13, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Trying to believe in the make-believe world of the present age. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online After listening to a variety of American, Middle Eastern, and European pundits, I wish that their understanding of the way the world works were true \u2014 or at least even that they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "February 2004"","block_context":{"text":"February 2004","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2004\/february-2004\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4952,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-boomerang-effect\/","url_meta":{"origin":4741,"position":3},"title":"The Boomerang Effect","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 14, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Be careful of what you wish for. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The Security Council is a funny place. I watched the Chinese ambassador grimace at Mr. Powell's speech \u2014 and thought of the entire country and hallowed culture of Tibet, now swallowed by his government. Not far\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "February 2003"","block_context":{"text":"February 2003","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2003\/february-2003\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4796,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-election-of-1864\/","url_meta":{"origin":4741,"position":4},"title":"The Election of 1864","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 21, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Advantage: Commander-in-chief. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The standing ovation for the chairman of the interim Iraqi Governing Council, the systematic refutation of all the tired canards \u2014 \"unilateralism,\" \"preemption,\" and \"hubris\" \u2014 praise and admiration for Afghans, the peroration about the historic times we are in and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "January 2004"","block_context":{"text":"January 2004","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2004\/january-2004\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4993,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/voices-in-the-wilderness\/","url_meta":{"origin":4741,"position":5},"title":"Voices in the Wilderness","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 18, 2002","format":false,"excerpt":"Versus the age-old sirens of appeasement by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Listening to the administration make the case for preemptive action brought reminders of similarly exasperated leaders of the past. To the skepticism of the U.N., the open disdain of the Europeans, the opposition of the so-called moderate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2002"","block_context":{"text":"October 2002","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2002\/october-2002\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4741"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4742,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4741\/revisions\/4742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n.
\nStill, despite all this, we are told by all both that Iraq is better off without Saddam Hussein and that the United States cannot precipitously withdraw from the country and cease its reconstruction efforts. Yet does such sentiment translate into support for the ongoing effort to bring “democracy” to Iraq? Hardly. Apparently a new exegesis has arisen that goes something like the following:\u00a0The United States was wrong to go to war to take out a monster who deserved to be taken out but nevertheless should stay to ensure stability in a country that it has no right to be in<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n