"If John is right, what lessons does this hold for the left as we go about the task of recreating much of that infrastructure for our own side?"

That we should hold extremely closely to staying within the reality-based community, and resist the temptation to overspin in a desire to create favorable "frames"...

The real problem with contemporary conservatism is that it is addicted to moronic stupidity. Anti-stem cell, dynamic scoring, global warming, christian triumphaism, anti-evolution, abstinence sex eduction, NCLB stupidity, CAFE standards, and so forth. They ALL reveal the GOP's fealty to brain-dead dead end idiots, and it's elevation of POLITICS and POLITICAL SUPREMACY over truth.

In today's world, you have to be a total moron to be a GOP member.

So now we have quantitive data for Lincoln's "You can fool all of the people some of the time...."

25% can be fooled all the time
75% can be fooled part of the time
100% can be fooled some of the time

The last bit should provide cover for all those presidential candidates who believed the Iraq fictions.

What Petey said.

As for Americans faith in military power, I'm at least as pessimistic as Kevin. Look at documentary Why We Fight and watch Eisenhower's warning about the Military-Congressional-Industrial Complex. Well after any conceivably rational reason, we continue to make vast amounts of military hardware, suitable for fighting the cold war. When you make hundreds of billions of $ worth of hammers, the world tends to look like one big nail.

To the extent the Left has tried to recreate that infrastructure (Air America) it has not been terribly successful. On the other hand, the alternate infrastructure we've started to build in the last 5 years has been very effective in neutralizing the impact of theirs. For example, when their media machine was dominating the way issues were covered without a counter weight, they were able to influence the entire debate. Now that there is a counter pressure from blogs calling out Conservative bias, the Coulter/Powerline/Fox axis is increasingly ghettoized in their influence. We've turned their strength into a weakness by adapting to it, and calling it like it is, not by emulating it.

I hope small online donations will eventually become a similarly effective counter to the money machine they've built.

I'm pretty skeptical too, particularly about any prospect of a new realism when it comes to military action.

There will be plenty of future presidents and other high-ranking officials who will have ego (and/or ideology) enough to believe that, yes, those people in the past got it wrong, but this time we'll do it right.

As long as we're the biggest bully on the block, that'll be the case.

We like war just fine. In fact, I'm particularly enjoying the right wing War on Itself (tm)

Ditto on skepticism on the military. Two other references: Hedge's book, War Is a Force that Gives Life Meaning, which (among much good stuff--best book I've ever read on war), talks about postwar amnesia--war is so awful we have to forget about it afterwards. Which then leads to the next disaster.

The other book is Chasing Ghosts--Unconventional Wargfare in American History by John J. Tierney, Jr. Turns out that Vietnam is NOT the only disastrous insurgency U.S. has fought. We've done it repeatedly over all of history. Won some, like Indians Wars, through use of Total War, but lost many for different reasons. The point is that we NEVER did lessons learned. Had to improvise & cobble together ideas every single time we tried it again.

Yep, we'll do it again in about 20-30 years. The nice thing about being older is that, with any luck, I'll be dead by then.

All that demonstrates is that it's really hard to instill civilization in a primitive culture.

Right, like the Republican Party.

Or should that be the Republic Party?

American faith in military power really been permanently damaged?

This will never happen.

The noise machine -- and the rise of the internet -- did help radicalize the right, but the ossification of ideology is a syndrome of the swinging pendulum and happens regardless of such conditions. After the left enjoyed decades of success, we had some ideological stuckness too... many in the left opposed Clinton's welfare reform out of reflex rather than careful consideration. Now, pragmatism has replaced ideological fixedness for us. Many in the right reflexively oppose government involvement simply because it is that, but you would have to hunt pretty far (probably in academic circles) to find a lefty that opposed private enterprise simply because of what it is.

The disconnect between the immense amounts of money being spent on the military and the chronic shortage of soldiers, equipment and vehicles in the actual war zones is not going to go away soon. It's leading people to wonder what they are getting for their "defense" dollars, especially since paying for the actual war is not even part of the defense budget, but is financed through a series of supplements to the "real" defense budget.

The notion that we have the "most powerful military in the history of the world" is true only in the sense that we can blow everyone up, which has been true basically since the Sixties, when the nuclear arsenal expanded to absurd levels. But in terms of usable military power, we're not even close. The feeble British military of the 1920s, for example, was still able put down revolts in Iraq, to name only one situation.

The contemporary U.S. military is unable to fight a war much smaller than Vietnam without aproaching collapse. We're losing two wars to enemies with tiny factions of a percent of our wealth and far smaller populations. The military failure in Iraq and Afghanistan has destroyed the credibility of the American forces in any situation other than a conventional land war fought with conventional armies, navies and air forces, the least likely possibility.

In Iraq, we're giving the world a graduate course in how to beat us, in case they'd forgotten Vietnam.

Actually, they didn't, we did.

We've taught everyone that our army is too small to beat a moderate uprising in a small country (much smaller than Vietnam) and that we have no ability to raise a larger army. We are also completely unable to protect those who join us.

Those are pretty valuable lessons that before the Bush II regime, the world little noted but cannot now forget.

The GOP foisted these fiascoes off on the American public. Now that it's discovering the awful truth, forgiveness will come slowly. Perhaps the Republicans should just hope for forgetfulness. But that's impossible with war dragging on. Bush has put his party into the same impossible situation that he's put the Army and Marines. Except, the GOP casualties simply go off to the K Street lobbying firms. The fate of Army and Marine casualties is altogether grimmer.

> On the other hand, the alternate
> infrastructure we've started to
> build in the last 5 years has been
> very effective in neutralizing the
> impact of theirs.

I am pretty skeptical about this, and therefore Petey's advice as well. The cigarette, beer, and pharma industries don't spend 3x more per year on marketing and advertising than R&D because marketing doesn't work; in fact the evidence is that it _does_ work. The Radical Right is very good at shaping the debate by communicating on a visceral level and to the extent that Democrats try to stick to a reality-based script they will be severely punished for it in the world of emotional political marketing.

I agree with Kevin on the limits of military power thing, but here again the Radical Right is already working on spinning the debate with the "Democrats betrayed the troops", "Clinton cut the military", and outright dolstchosslegende memes and it appears to me that they are having a lot of success.

Cranky

We are one terrorist attack away from being enamored with war again.

> The feeble British military of the 1920s,
> for example, was still able put down
> revolts in Iraq, to name only one situation.

There were no AK-47s, plastic explosives, or shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles in 1920.

Cranky

Kevin should consider a more obvious explanation first. President Reagan was succeeded by George Bush. After he took the electoral majority Reagan had produced and flushed it after one term, the Republicans turned leadership of their party over to his son.

Look, you can come up with a lot of reasons why Democrats became the majority party beginning in the 1930s, but the biggest one is that a Republican President was overwhelmed in the face of a major crisis and his Democratic successors were both great men. I don't see the second half of that equation coming around again, but the outlines of the first one are evident. The bottom line is that the Republicans turned leadership of their party over to the Bush family, and is now paying the price. It may still be paying that price years from now.

Cranky,

I respectfully disagree with your assessment of the success of the right wing's spin. They aren't saying anything new. The body count is still rising. Polls are showing that support for the war has been dropping steadily and significantly.

Let me put it another way. Can you imagine anyone being for the war, then against the war, and then changing their mind back to being for the war on the basis of yet another whiny "the democrats are aiding and abetting the enemy" accusation?

I know that being against the war and being for a timetable are not exactly the same thing. But the strength of the anti-war sentiment is greater than the strength of the anti-pullout sentiment.

You don't stop what you're doing until you can't explain away the losses anymore. Bush won in 2004 because Americans could explain away all of the mistakes.

The Republicans have had a nice run of success in elections, and until they lose in 2008 and 2010, they won't be able to change anything.

The Democrats were able to win in 2006 because Dean said "We aren't winning, we need to change what we are doing." And started to lay the groundwork.

> Can you imagine anyone

Out in my red-purple neck of the woods, a lot of people (more than 25%) like beating up on furriners. They liked Bush because he set out to beat up on a lot of 'em; now they are disliking because he is failing in his job and getting a bunch of them killed (lots of National Guard out here too). I don't think it would be too hard for a Guiliani, say , to get them back on board with the beatdown program, no. Especially if they can blame the derailment on "liberals".

Cranky

The war machine has permeated our entire country.

We can rant and rave all we want, screaming for peace.

But the fact is the US is a vast engine for making things that kill and maim.

Check out the defense budget.

Wake up to the fact that parts for the B-1 bomber are made in all 50 states.

Until we realize how wedded we are to violence, the weapons will keep getting made (and sold!!!).

I have no faith in a peace movement unless the defense budget is slashed by 1/2 and the funds put into affordable housing, drug rehab, etc. The sorts of things America needs right now.

The war in Iraq is only a small part of our vast military charade.

Heck, we even have extra aircraft carriers in the waters off of Iran..."take that Iran.!"

Iraq is a disaster, not just for both countries but for their party. The Republicans should pick another issue to push. At this point, mandatory kitten-strangling classes for sickly senior citizens would be an improvement.

But I can think of a better idea.

Cranky,

OK - You're thinking more long term than I am. I guess I can see the same pernicious lie being laid out. Giuliani's an interesting phenomenon. Someone said of him (I'm paraphrasing) "His signature issue is Terrorism, and he has no experience or expertise in dealing with it".

'Political dynasties fall from negligent stewardship. One thinks of the upward redistribution called "tax relief"; of the Iraq invasion sold as critical to the "War on Terror"; of rising poverty, inequality, crime, debt, and foreclosure as America spews its bounty on war and a military so muscle-bound it is like Gulliver. It would be hard to imagine a more catastrophic failure of stewardship, certainly in the biblical sense of helping the poor and allocating resources for the health of society. Once upon a time these errant stewards boasted of restoring a culture of integrity to politics. They became instead an axis of corruption, joining corporate power to political ideology to religious self-righteousness.' - Bill Moyers

I'd like to believe John -- that is, I'd like to believe that Iraq will serve as a permanent lesson about the limits of military power and what it can achieve, but I'm just not sure I do.

Every generation has to relearn that lesson, unfortunately.

Nothing would please me more than a permanent realignment with the Democrats back on top for a change. But are you really prepared to make this assessment based on ONE poll? Sorry, but Democrats have ALWAYS outpolled the Republicans on a host of issues and then lost anyway. Furthermore, there is already a moderating trend among Republicans, at least those who want to win elections. If Giuliani gets the nomination, he wins the election. Sadly, I just don't think Hillary or Obama have any chance against a moderate GOP candidate.

I'd like to believe John -- that is, I'd like to believe that Iraq will serve as a permanent lesson about the limits of military power and what it can achieve, but I'm just not sure I do. This belief is very deeply embedded in American culture, after all, and I suspect that, just as with Vietnam, most people will simply conclude that Iraq was a bad war, not that it represented a fundamentally flawed worldview.

Actually, the American belief in military power isn't as deeply embedded as you might think. Historically it's waxed and waned, and there were many eras in our history when military force was viewed with suspicion. The current American fascination with and reverence for military might really stems from post-World War II, thanks in large part to the deliberate creation of a large military national security apparatus and the fostering of a sense of permanent war in the American population by that same apparatus. It's the constant sense of threat that leads Americans to overvalue their military, not an inherent love for the military per se.

For forty years, remember, we were engaged in a Cold War, and now the Cold War has been engaged by the War on Terror (TM). If you keep telling your people that they're at war and that the military is the only thing standing between them and the slavering hordes, well naturally they're going to value that military more highly. If you promote a more realistic assessment of the threat and realize that economic/diplomatic/cultural tools might be equally as effective, then the military will be seen as less necessary.

What Edward Furey said.

After Iraq we will have no choice but to accept a greater sense of military fallibility. Presumably that will dilute the calls for projection of military supremacy.

That is not to say that there will be more or less external pressure for war. Presumably as resources grow more scarce there will be more need for war.

While I can't imagine that this will be a popular remark in these parts, I think that there is not one, but two real lessons to be learned from the Iraq War, each corresponding to a distinct phase in that war.

1. At certain kinds of military engagement, the US military is likely nearly unequalled in the history of warfare. This corresponds to the truly breathtaking success in the very earliest phase of the war -- that of invading Iraq and deposing its extant power structure.

2. At the task of controlling a population in an occupied territory, the US military has virtually no real capability. This corresponds to the later phase of the war.

Liberals don't seem to want to talk about 1. Conservatives don't want to talk about 2.

But an intelligent use of the military from here on out will take both to heart. I see quick, very precisely limited strikes as being the sensible strategy here, and only under genuine duress. Of course, I'm envisioning a Democratic President, therefore, as being the only type of leader capable of the discipline and deliberateness that would require.

what lessons does this hold for the left as we go about the task of recreating much of that infrastructure for our own side?

A fairly simple one, really: Facts will not disseminate themselves. Our friends on the right set up that infrastructure to obscure what their agenda really calls for. Unlike the Right, we can safely state our agenda, since most Americans actually support it. Here's a quote from Gary Kamiya on Salon today:

But the significance of the Pew study, the latest in a series that started in 1987, goes beyond Bush or the upcoming election. On virtually every issue, it shows that the public holds views that are closer to those of the Democrats than the Republicans -- and that long-term trends are moving in that direction, too.

Trouble is, the public may not actually be aware of that -- and the Democrats never bother to tell them. Instead, they hem and haw when they're accused of being "out of the mainstream", and worry about the pinheads on Fox News calling them names.

The Republicans have better marketing. It's as simple as that. We have a superior product,but it still needs to be marketed properly.

...really does lead to Americans taking a more sensible view of what we want to accomplish in the world...

How about electing some sensible Americans. Is that so hard?

> Liberals don't seem to want to talk
> about 1. Conservatives don't want to
> talk about 2.

Pretty much every liberal I know said both (1) and (2) explicitly in the runup to W's invasion of Iraq (as did all the pacifists), so in what sense exactly do you mean liberals "don't want to talk about it"?

Also, what good exactly does (1) do without (2)? The US isn't strong enough to invade the PRC, Russia, or Pakistan even given (1), and there isn't any other large force on the planet that would otherwise pose a challenge (not to mention be stupid enough to provoke a standup fight).

Cranky

> OK - You're thinking more long term
> than I am.

That may be so, but I am also simply stating that the Radical Right spent 30 years and several billion dollars building their marketing machine (including the subversion of an entire cable network and its affiliates), and that marketing machine works very well.

Cranky

Violence works see...
And we are winning in Iraq see...
It's hard work I know...
And we have to sacrifice...
But be patient...see...

American military idolatry has to be destroyed if we are to prevent future wars of conquest and domination. The reverence the public displays towards its veterans and military power is not an indication that it will be ending anytime soon. No candidate or political platform calling for the abolition of our huge and useless military would survive our toady politics, as the bashing of anti-military progressives by Democrats, who support trillion dollar defense budgets just as strongly as the Republican War Party, demonstrates.

When one looks at recent past military powers that have renounced militantism as a national characteristic, it appears only total defeat and unconditional surrender to a greater power breaks the will to dominate with force. The problem for the US is that is has a huge cache of WMD that it would use to prevent such a defeat, even if it meant destroying the rest of the world. It will take an extraordinary communicator to convince the American people that its weapons and desire to eliminate threats with force are detriments to its security and prosperity. I know of no such leader and cannot forsee one coming to save us from ourselves anytime soon.

Second, has American faith in military power really been permanently damaged?

Only until Hollywood can come up with an Iraq version of Rambo

Petey fairly got my view at the top.

If John is right, what lessons does this hold for the left as we go about the task of recreating much of that infrastructure for our own side?

A lesson may be that it didn't take much recreating to knock them back a lot.

Strong on defense? For all of their tough talk, when was the last time a Republican administration sucessfully prosecuted a war? We now know that the Repubs are pathetic at war, useless on controlling government spending, and more than willing to destroy the constitution for their own purposes. Now that we know that the Repubs are capable of far more waste, fraud, abuse, and general stupidity than the Democrats ever exhibited, it is understandable why they need their own echo chamber. Brain explosions would occur if they ever poked their head out of the sound-proof door.

The main principle of conservatism, to wit, the slavish resistence to progress, ensures that conservatism cannot survive in the long run. The main mistake of the current crop of Reagan worshippers was their delusion that they can forge a permanent majority by fooling the poor and middle class into believing that what is not good for them is actually what is good for them.

Don't worry Kev, The future abounds with "smart wars" for you to cheer for!

First is John's suggestion that the conservative infrastructure built up in the 70s and 80s has become one of the right's biggest weaknesses.

No, he's claiming its become the Republican Party's biggest weakness, because it anchors the Republican Party firmly in the hard right.

He seems to be claiming that the right's biggest weakness is what it always has been since the right was defending monarchy against the early, largely aristocratic and patriarchal, movements to "democracy", the broad and, though occasionally momentarily reversed, largely continuous human drive for progress and empowerment.

The distinction is important because the structure of the American electoral system pretty much guarantees that there will be two major parties in very rough parity. If the Republicans weren't tightly anchored to the extreme right, as the mood of the country drifted farther to the left, so would they; if they are too tightly anchored to the extreme right, they risk catastrophic implosion and replacement, either by a new party that challenges the Democrats from a more moderately right-ish position or by a realignment in which the Democratic Party becomes the major right-ish party and a new party is dominant on the left.

Moving on...

Second, has American faith in military power really been permanently damaged? I doubt this very much, but I'd be interested in hearing more discussion.

I don't think its a binary issue; in the short term, it probably will make Americans more averse to any interventionism. In the long term? Harder to tell. With any luck Iraq will be seen (as you, oddly, "fear") as a particularly bad war, and Americans will have an understanding of why it was a particularly bad war. Neither "force good" nor "force bad" is a sufficient, sane way of running foreign policy, and certainly we should move from an extreme and dangerous version of the one to the mirror image position. Force is sometimes necessary as the least-bad option. We need both to avoid it when that is not the case, and to apply it effectively when that is the case.

But to do that, we need to get past simplistic labels of positions as either "pro-war" or "anti-war"...

I think the wooing of the South and evangelicals first seen in Reagan's run was in large part the seed of the republican's predicament. The fundamentalist groups gained more confidence as well as more representatives in think tanks and lobbying efforts. The press had more association with them as a result and gave them more credence and column space. The coalition Rove worked to build was in fact more hostage to the fundamentalists than perhaps they had planned for. And the fundamentalists realized their power and their expectations went up. Unfortunately, for the republican party, fundamentalists now hold positions in their infrastructure and the fundamentalist views are not shared by an electoral majority. We are now witnessing the coalition forces demobilizing while muttering, "Sorry guys. Your fight is not our fight. Good luck."
All the "enemy of my enemy..." stuff could not hold as a permanent coalition.

As far as the military. I'll be curious to see. Certainly the industry isn't going away. They're more powerful than AARP. But, does it really matter how we see the role of our military now? The one thing that really seems to have transpired in the last few years is that the myth of American military power around the world has been punctured (and I believe permanently)so our ability to gather together military coalitions in the future is greatly damaged. Add in the growing economic strength of China and the EU among others and we just may be entering a new era of diplomacy and goat trading.

The biggest problem with modern Conservatism is that it attracts and promotes jerks. President Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, DeLay, Gingrich, Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, Feith, Bennett, Rumsfeld, Rove, Buchanan, Giuliani, Romney, and the list goes on and on. What do they all have in common besides Conservatism? They are total jerks on the personal level willing to lie, cheat, and steal from their own mothers to gain power. Even if they were correct about every issue of the day, they would eventually lose popularity because the more people find out about them, the more people hate them.

Pretty much every liberal I know said both (1) and (2) explicitly in the runup to W's invasion of Iraq (as did all the pacifists), so in what sense exactly do you mean liberals "don't want to talk about it"?

Well, certainly there were a good number of liberals who doubted that the invasion of Iraq would be easy to accomplish.

But that's not really my point. My point is rather that many liberals want the takeaway from the Iraq war to be only that use of US military power is destined to lead to a morass and failure -- pretty much the very conclusion you imply when you say "Also, what good exactly does (1) do without (2)?"

I'm arguing that the US military CAN be used to great effect in circumstances in which we have a very carefully limited goal, such as a strike taking out a precisely defined enemy or threat.

You talk as though that would be an extraordinary thing. I think that in contrast it would be exactly the sort of assymetric threat we would most expect to encounter in our current world; I simply don't expect wars with major countries, as in generations past.

For example, deposing the Taliban, because they enabled Al Qaeda would be a good example of such an engagement. Or eliminating a nuclear threat in Iran, if it looks as though radical elements are coming into control of the country, and diplomacy has failed utterly.

Obviously in any such case, good judgment and clear appreciation of the risks are required.

> Well, certainly there were a good number of
> liberals who doubted that the invasion of
> Iraq would be easy to accomplish.

Can you point to them specifically please? Because if not the rest of your argument is just hash (which it is anyway, but let's begin at the beginning).

Cranky

Zathras wrote: The bottom line is that the Republicans turned leadership of their party over to the Bush family, and is now paying the price. It may still be paying that price years from now.

I'm just fine with the Republican Party reaping the disaster that results from convincing itself that Bush the Lesser was the second coming of Ronald Reagan, but the problem is, the rest of the country -- if not the world -- will also be paying the price for Bush's fuck-uppery.

As to Kevin's first question -- I think there's no chance that an avowedly liberal think-tank and advocacy structure would end up producing the kind of lock-step clones that the right wing has produced. Just look at the cacophony among the left bloggers, commenters, and so on. And more than once, when envy of the right-wing power structure has been voiced in these parts, I have seen the response, "But we'll never be able to do that, we're liberals."

As to the second question, it seems to me that the War of Jenkins' Ear (Iraqi WMDS, Communist menace in Southeast Asia, Remember the Maine, whatever the War of 1812 was about, etc., etc.) will be incited and fought again, and again, and again. Too bad, that, but barring utopia, there we are.

On the first point, I don't think we're trying to create a left-wing version of the right wing noise machine. We simply want the press to ascertain and point out reality, not some "he said, she said" "evenhanded" treatment, much less create some lefty reality sphere.

On the second point, I think that eventually we will have to rebuild some semblance of a US economy not based on imports, a housing bubble, and consumer spending. But in the meantime, our military strength, however much its limits have been on display in Iraq, is pretty much what we've got, and the government of the empire, from either party, is going to make do with what it's got. Let's just hope that Dems stop using military strength as a complete substitute for economic, diplomatic, and human capital-building measures.

As long as Americans persist in the idea that America is inherently supreme in the world, inherently correct in its practices, inherently "better" than every other country -- despite any evidence to the contrary -- military misadventurism will persist.

but also because of the party's success in constructing a parallel universe of news sources, thinktanks, blogs, pseudo-scientists and so on, which has led to the core becoming more tightly committed to an extremist ideology.

this parallel universe that they created for themselves has caused them to become completely unhinged from reality(Inhoffe's global warming "hoax" and all the anti-gay, anti-abortion insanity are just couple of examples)--this is what has put them in a permanent minority status.

Most sane people recognize that the wacko right, the loyal base of the Republican Party, are just plain wrong and their wacko rhetoric is dismissed by the majority.

Just to elaborate a bit more on what I'm arguing: a quick strike by our military to depose a ruling power or remove a specific threat does NOT necessarily require us to do a lot of nation building afterwards, if any. The only clear constraint is that we can't leave things worse than they were before, at least from the point of view of our own security.

That last point, however, really does mean that we should strike pretty much only in extremis.

frankly0,
You have heard of the Powell Doctrine right? You seem to be describing it.

Just to elaborate a bit more on what I'm arguing: a quick strike by our military to depose a ruling power or remove a specific threat does NOT necessarily require us to do a lot of nation building afterwards, if any.

If the take-away lesson from this for Americans is that we need to abandon all military action that involves or requires "nation-building", and limit ourselves to quick retributive or decapitation strikes, that will certainly be the wrong lesson.

The problem with Iraq wasn't that it required "nation-building" and the the US is especially incompetent about that. The US has led and contributed effectively to military efforts (both following US-led wars and to end wars which the US was not involved in) which involved substantial reconstruction, nation-building, stabilization, monitoring, etc. That's not the problem with Iraq.

Don't learn th wrong lesson Kevin. What goes up must come down. This part of the normal cycylical dynamics of American politics. But even though the Repubs may soon be on the outs that doesn't mean they weren't very successful for a long time. We should learn from that so we can be successful for a long time too before the pendulum swings back yet again.

Well, certainly there were a good number of liberals who doubted that the invasion of Iraq would be easy to accomplish.

Then I'm sure you won't have any trouble naming some.

By the by, speaking as one who never doubted that the invasion of Iraq would be easy to accomplish: Big deal. It hardly proves your point #1, given the wholly pathetic state of Iraq's armed forces, which never really recovered from the first Gulf War. As Cranky pointed out, there's a laundry list of countries our military wouldn't be able to roll so easily. Those who use Iraq's example, for instance, to predict easy success in Iran are woefully misinformed or blinded by ideology.

Kinda like, as Kevin notes, the modern Republican Party.

Two things make me skeptical of the idea the public will turn against the use of military power.

The growth of Right Wing religious interpretations (calling themselves "fundamentalist" religious interpretations) is happening worldwide. This movement is the same movement that is xenophobic, racist and generally pro-killing. This won't change by the failure of one war.

Also, to eliminate the need for war there needs to be an alternative method of conflict resolution. Are we willing to put into place the political and legal institutions that eliminate the need for war? Will the United States support the creation of legal institutions that allow the Palestinians to sue Israel? The Iraqis to sue the United States and UK? How about political institutions that allow al Qaeda to get elected to a world parliament?

The spin on the Iraq War will be that it was the personal failings of individuals, not that war as a tool is discredited.

What will permanently sour the country on war is when they realize the cost. So far this has been a "free" war. When the $1 trillion this war is going to cost is laid against the cost of shoring up Social Security, the public attitude shift against war will be long standing.

It is quite naive to say that the Iraq War has caused permanent damage to America's faith in military power when it is clear that the Vietnam War with its 58,169 American deaths did not.

It's been said that it takes approximately a generation for the blunders of the previous generation to be forgotten, dismissed or disregarded. I fear that the lesson regarding the limits of military power will be one we will be obliged to learn again and again.

You have heard of the Powell Doctrine right? You seem to be describing it.

I won't disagree.

I'm arguing that the US military CAN be used to great effect in circumstances in which we have a very carefully limited goal, such as a strike taking out a precisely defined enemy or threat.

As others have implied, I don't think anyone is questioning this point.

If only Powell would have insisted on adhering to the Powell doctrine, we might not be in our current mess.

"On virtually every issue, it shows that the public holds views that are closer to those of the Democrats than the Republicans -- and that long-term trends are moving in that direction, too."
Trouble is, the public may not actually be aware of that -- and the Democrats never bother to tell them.

I've noticed that problem. Of course, TV interviewers don't often just ask what the Democratic position on any subject is, but you'd think a reasonably intelligent interviewee would try to sneak the information in. Reinforces the view that Democrats don't know what they stand for, I think.

Of course, TV interviewers don't often just ask what the Democratic position on any subject is, but you'd think a reasonably intelligent interviewee would try to sneak the information in. Reinforces the view that Democrats don't know what they stand for, I think.

I think it has more to due with lack of message discipline. Dems are easily led off into gotcha traps by interviewers, whereas wingers just ignore the leading questions and repeat their talking pts.

Hopefully there will be a fundamental difference between our institutions and the right's institutions. I speak of course of this reality based approach that I hope is fundamental to liberalism.

In a previous post, I had pointed out how libertarianism and conservatism at their core are about ideology. If the results of applying their idiology are disasters in the real world, it is not that important. The important thing is whether the proper world view was represented in leading to those results.

Liberalism, I hope, aims to achieve real world results based on what we believe. And I hope that we are willing to change tactics if our original approaches cause disasterous results.

If this is true, and we can avoid the corruption that is sinking the conservatives, I don't think we carry the same risk.

While I can't imagine that this will be a popular remark in these parts, I think that there is not one, but two real lessons to be learned from the Iraq War, each corresponding to a distinct phase in that war.

1. At certain kinds of military engagement, the US military is likely nearly unequalled in the history of warfare. This corresponds to the truly breathtaking success in the very earliest phase of the war -- that of invading Iraq and deposing its extant power structure.

You mean, the part where the Iraqi military deliberately dissolved, knowing the US strength, and prepared to carry out a lower-intensity resistance by allowing the US in and turning guerrilla, targetting supply lines, etc.?

Sometimes an invasion is remarkably easy because you are more powerful than you think; sometimes its just because the enemy isn't doing what you expect.

So I think this lesson is wrong.

2. At the task of controlling a population in an occupied territory, the US military has virtually no real capability. This corresponds to the later phase of the war.

Really? The US has been involved in both failed and successful nation-building efforts, in failed states (e.g., Somalia, a failure itself), in areas where it was not a belligerent in the preceding conflict (e.g., Bosnia, certainly not the kind of spectacular failure that Iraq is), and in areas where it was a belligerent in the preceding conflict (e.g., Kosovo, which seems to be on the path to success, and Iraq, a dismal failure.)

I don't think you've quite got the appropriate lesson with this one, either.

The lesson seems pretty simple. The American military is excellent at kicking ass, but suck at everything else besides that and current military operations require a lot of that "everything else."

Kevin Drum wrote ". . . American liberals have become pretty entranced by the success of all those thinktanks and radio bloviators in recent years."

Could be, but one of the points that George Lakoff makes is that American conservatives have invested in an infrastructure of thinktanks that generate propaganda about conservatism itself, while liberals invest in thinktanks that work on specific issues. And conservative foundations will endow “distinguished scholars” that pay people to sit and think and research and write about conservative thought and philosophy itself, while liberal foundations demand that all of the money support the specific cause — Heaven forbid that anything be diverted to capacity building of the organization or of liberalism as a whole.

As a result, we have organizations such as the Heritage Foundation that churn out endless think pieces that inundate the media and the public with conservative philosophy, and we have pundits and politicians who were trained in their conservative thinktank universities to endlessly promote strict-father-morality conservatism.

And even though strict-father morality doesn't work very well — it's not a good model for diplomacy, or environmental stewardship, or for prevention of crime, or for rehabilitation of criminals, or for economic growth, or even for raising children — the liberal part of the conversation is significantly curtailed by liberal failure to invest in liberalism itself.

As others have implied, I don't think anyone is questioning this point.

I really don't think you're being honest with yourself about what conclusions many on the left have drawn from the Iraq war.

Are you really asserting that, for example, it's not the case that a great many liberals have concluded that it would be a disaster to take out Iran's nuclear weapons even in a limited strike, even including a limited, targetted invasion, because it would inevitably lead to another Iraq war morass?

I'm not talking about whether it would be a disaster if BUSH did so, but whether even a Democratic President might rightly do so if diplomacy failed, and radical elements seemed to be in ascendancy in Iran.

If you really don't believe that many on the left have drawn quite general anti-war conclusions from the Iraq war, I wonder at how objectively you can look at the liberal movement.

>"Only until Hollywood can come up with an Iraq version of Rambo"

Hmmm... they don't show the 'Afghanistan' version of Rambo on TeeVee much anymore. Yeah, the one where he and Ronnie help the Jihadists fight that infidel western ideology.

Too funny.

Good lawd, frankly0. An attack on a nation posing no immediate threat to the US is illegal, whether a Dem or GOPer orders the strike. You've been watching too much /24/.

I really don't think you're being honest with yourself about what conclusions many on the left have drawn from the Iraq war.

Before we get into discussions of honesty, I'd ask you -- again -- to name this "many on the Left" you keep referring to.

Thanks in advance.

Good lawd, frankly0. An attack on a nation posing no immediate threat to the US is illegal, whether a Dem or GOPer orders the strike. You've been watching too much /24/.

Not only that, but -- while anyone sensible is forced to recognize the risks of a military strike on Iran -- I would, once again, be curious as to who, exactly, denies that "even a Democratic President might rightly do so if diplomacy failed, and radical elements seemed to be in ascendancy in Iran."

Enough is enough -- put up or shut up time.

Bob Altemeyer's studies on authoritarianism (leaders and followers), which formed much of the clinical basis of John Dean's Conservatives Without Conscience, strongly suggest that right-wingers are much more prone to this type of unitary mindset thinking. And we're seeing this effect taken to the extreme now with these 25-30%'ers.

Left-wingers are far less likely to fall into this implosion trap. The recent rapid expansion of Internet and grassroots voices across a diverse continuum seems to reflect this, at least so far, especially in comparison to what we hear coming from the right-wing. So, while we should be mindful of the dangers, building up a left-wing infrastructure (think tanks, radio, blogs, etc.) to support idea creation, nurturing and dissemination should still be a prominent goal.

Good lawd, frankly0. An attack on a nation posing no immediate threat to the US is illegal, whether a Dem or GOPer orders the strike. You've been watching too much /24/.

And so if we knew that Iran would in few months acquire nuclear weapons, refused to give them up, and was entirely controlled by radical elements, you would argue that the US couldn't take out those weapons in a limited strike, even including a limited invasion perhaps, because doing so was "illegal"?

You see, you are exactly the sort of case I have in mind about how liberals have drawn very general anti-war conclusions from the Iraq war.

I would say instead that the we and the world would be safer by such an attack, and that the capability demonstrated by the US military in the early phases of the Iraq war show how we might readily accomplish such a goal.

Are you really asserting that, for example, it's not the case that a great many liberals have concluded that it would be a disaster to take out Iran's nuclear weapons even in a limited strike, even including a limited, targetted invasion, because it would inevitably lead to another Iraq war morass? I'm not talking about whether it would be a disaster if BUSH did so, but whether even a Democratic President might rightly do so if diplomacy failed, and radical elements seemed to be in ascendancy in Iran. If you really don't believe that many on the left have drawn quite general anti-war conclusions from the Iraq war, I wonder at how objectively you can look at the liberal movement.

The scenario you present above is an example of a Democratic President committing an illegal and hostile act of aggressive war -- I certainly hope that all liberals would conclude that such a course would be not only a disaster, but a grave war crime.

Are you really asserting that, for example, it's not the case that a great many liberals have concluded that it would be a disaster to take out Iran's nuclear weapons even in a limited strike, even including a limited, targetted invasion, because it would inevitably lead to another Iraq war morass?

Yeah, attempting a "limited strike" against a nation which has a porous border with one where the US has large numbers of forces already embroiled in a conflict the US is unable to effectively control is a bad idea.

As is the delusion that a limited strike without blowback can be conducted against a limited strike against any country that actually has nuclear weapons that would be a threat of using them in the first place.

Certainly, if there is one idea that ought to have been discredited by the Iraq war, it is the idea of preventive war of the type you seem to be laying out here, where the threat is distant, nonspecific, and speculative.

So, yeah, lots of liberals (and most sane people) would probably see what you propose as a bad idea, in part because of the concrete facts resulting from the Iraq war, but that has little to do with the kind of reflexive anti-warism you are trying to describe as widespread among liberals because of the Iraq war.

"Well, certainly there were a good number of liberals who doubted that the invasion of Iraq would be easy to accomplish."

No, what is certain is that that is the exact opposite of the truth.

Actually the only people I ever heard worry that we wouldn't be able to invade Iraq were far right wierdos (you know, the type who actually beleive Cheney) worried about nuclear bombs and dramatic chemical attacks by the Iraqi military during the invasion. It was the post-invasion stage which worried thinking people. Most of the right was so collossally unthinking about this war that they didn't even notice what the doubts were about at the time and therefore don't remember them correctly today. The recent summaries of Molly Ivan's columns after her death are an excellent example where she says exactly what I describe.

BTW how did you manage to have your breath taken by the early success? That phase really could not have been less suprising. We fought half of the exact same war against Iraq just a few years earlier, and his government and military had only deteriorated in that time.

A stark contrast to that would be afghanistan, where the great majority of liberals thought we could significantly damage the jihadist training infrastructure, and maybe even improve the lot of the regular afghan (given that they were so thouroughly in trouble already) with a limited war. The glorious decider has managed to largely avoid any benefit to regular afghan's so far, but it's hard to say afghanistan has gotten any worse given its previous state.

We also don't need to spend 60% of the worlds defense dollars to mount military operations like afghanistan, kosovo, somalia, etc.

The implosion is hardly a surprise. The Republican Party has completely abandoned all that it claimed to stand for. Smaller government? Less intrusive government? It delivers on neither of these and, at the same time, became even more corrupt in power.

It doesn't require many of your former supporters sitting on their hands in November to remove you from power. Their fall is far from complete. They will lose even more ground in legislatures around the country in 2008, and will foolishly believe it only has to do with Iraq. I foresee quite long journey in the wilderness for legislative Republicans everywhere.

Well, certainly there were a good number of liberals who doubted that the invasion of Iraq would be easy to accomplish.

This depends on a rather limited definition of "invasion" as being only the initial incursion divorced from any subsequent military action. By the same token I could say that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was a success because they managed to overthrow the Afghan government within a day or two.

Can progressives adopt a goal of finding ways to ensure that America does not forget the lessons of Vietnam and Iraq? There must be a way to influence how the history of these wars are taught in schools and creating vivid reminders in film, video, and posters that can be displayed periodically to serve as reminders.

And so if we knew that Iran would in few months acquire nuclear weapons, refused to give them up, and was entirely controlled by radical elements, you would argue that the US couldn't take out those weapons in a limited strike, even including a limited invasion perhaps, because doing so was "illegal"?

The reason it is "illegal" is because it is both immoral and practically unwise.

It is simply neither useful nor moral to engage in the crime of aggression because otherwise someone who might be inclined to engage in the same crime seems likely to gain the tools to do so more effectively.

If it were, every nation in the world would be justified in attacking the United States simply because it has a regime that has shown a propensity for aggressive war and already has the capacity to engage in it.

Well, frankly0, yes indeed some of us crazy, wacko lefties believe in the rule of law, not the rule of Rambo. Tragic that, huh?

That belief however was not forged in the death and mayhem of the Iraq War, but has been around for a long long time. Furthermore, some of us have been alive long enough to know that not only GOPers are incompetent militaristic boobs.

Your naivety would be charming if it wasn't so potentially lethal.

You're looking more and more like a concern troll.

This depends on a rather limited definition of "invasion" as being only the initial incursion divorced from any subsequent military action.

But really that's the point I'm making: to limit our strikes and invasions to situations in which that initial incursion mostly suffices to achieve what we really are seeking.

Taking out a nuclear capability in Iran, simply as an example, might well fall under this rubric.

Kevin, you're getting it all a bit simplistically? The point is, the infrastructuer does have power, but it's so kooky and repulsive that about as many people are repulsed as are emmpowered or drawn in. Our lesson, is to continue with fairly moderated operations and not get like them.

I see cmdicely likewise signs up for the view that an attack on Iran even under the extreme circumstances I described would be wrong.

And people on this thread wonder how I might possibly claim that liberals have become very anti-war after the Iraq war -- as if my view were absurd on its face?

Drum:

John's suggestion that the conservative infrastructure built up in the 70s and 80s has become one of the right's biggest weaknesses.

I'm not sure that is what Quiggin is saying...The infrastructure has facilitated the movement of conservative ideology towards the hard-hard right Lord of the Flies-style, but the hard-hard right had to be there in the first place. It's the extremism that has come to represent the entirety of conservative thought that's shrinking Republican support. The conservative thought infrastructure isn't a weakness; it's the only thing that gives today's conservative ideology the appearance of legitimacy.

..what lessons does this hold for the left as we go about the task of recreating much of that infrastructure for our own side?

Every group has its Ralphs, Jacks, Piggys, and Choirboys. While going about creating a competitive infrastructure, decide what the rules are, and stick to them. This way, the tent stays big enough to hold everyone, despite having differences. Otherwise, we devolve into a bunch of competing tribes, and suffer the typical and already-known consequences.

But really that's the point I'm making: to limit our strikes and invasions to situations in which that initial incursion mostly suffices to achieve what we really are seeking.

Which is a dumb point; even recently, these kind of instant attacks have been among the least productive of US military interventions. Sure, Iraq is an utter disaster that doesn't fit that model, but that doesn't validate that model as the preferred model for US attacks.

Certainly, where there is an adequate provocation for war, and where a limited strike like that would acheive the US aims in such a war, such an intervention might be appropriate. OTOH, there is no reason US military action should favor such limited strikes exclusively, nor is the particular example you present—an unjustified preventive war of aggression that shares the central problem of the Iraq War—an example of a place where such an action would be either warranted or useful.

Plus, of course, it would be a crime against peace, though clearly that does not concern you.

The implosion is hardly a surprise. The Republican Party has completely abandoned all that it claimed to stand for. Smaller government? Less intrusive government? It delivers on neither of these and, at the same time, became even more corrupt in power.

And you've supported them all the way, Yancey. How ruggedly individualistic of you.

[Mock applause]

By the by, Yancey, I do relish the fact that the Republican Party has recognzed that at least some of the positions it claims to revere are electoral poison. You are, of course, free to vote for a party that espouses your loony libertarian beliefs, and conveniently enough, there is such a party, named, coincidentally enough, the Libertarian Party.

Go ahead and join the miniscule minority who espouse your faith-based belief system, Yancey, or continue to sell out your beliefs too by supporting the Republicans. Rest assured that neither of these choices, ruggedly individualistic though they may be, are respectable. But neither are you, so that's okay, then.

I see cmdicely likewise signs up for the view that an attack on Iran even under the extreme circumstances I described would be wrong.

There is something seriously wrong with any description of a supposed justification of war that includes only the kind of speculative, vague, nonspecific threat that occurred in Iraq or that you speculate on with regard to Iran as "extreme circumstances".

Those aren't "extreme circumstances" justifying war.

Actual attacks or imminent, specific threats are "extreme circumstances" in which war is justifiable.

But really that's the point I'm making: to limit our strikes and invasions to situations in which that initial incursion mostly suffices to achieve what we really are seeking.

Yes, just like the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. And look at how well that worked out for them.

Taking out a nuclear capability in Iran, simply as an example, might well fall under this rubric.

No, it wouldn't -- unless you assume that the Iranians would just sit quietly by, twiddling their thumbs, and wouldn't try to strike back at us. War is the perfect real world illustration of the law of unintended consequences, and anyone who believes we could just attack Iran with an illegal and aggressive invasion and then go quietly along our way, whistling a merry tune isn't really thinking.

Kevin,
I'd like to believe that Iraq will serve as a permanent lesson about the limits of military power and what it can achieve, but I'm just not sure I do.

I think it serves as a permanent lesson at the limits of applying limited military power, i.e., just enough to almost win.

Meanwhile, there's piece on Reuters "Iran fears not denting Gulf boom', so there's one less thing to worry about.

I'm sure Halliburton's CEO is a teeny bit nervous. Keeping the old Gulfstream fuel and the pilot on standby.

The piece says in part:

[snip]

'The proximity of Gulf Arab countries to Iran, and fears that Iran could retaliate to any U.S. or Israeli military strike by attacking targets in U.S.-allied Gulf states, mean that conflict over Iran could destabilize the whole region. Iran is building a nuclear power station in Bushehr, not far from Gulf neighbors.

"What worries us is that the Bushehr nuclear reactor is 115 km from Kuwait," Nasra said. "So it's serious." '

[snip]

A conflict on their doorstep could undermine that, scaring away investors, businesses and tourists.

But business leaders at the Reuters summit said the region had weathered similar crises before -- the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979, the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, the first Gulf War in 1991 and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

"INTERESTING NEIGHBORHOOD"

"We've had lots of different conflicts in this part of the world. We live in an interesting neighborhood," said Waleed al-Mokkarab al-Muhairi, chief operating officer of Mubadala Development, an Abu Dhabi government investment firm.

"But we've always managed to preserve (our) stability and make the UAE a haven for investment. I see no reason why that's not going to continue."

[snip]

Gerald Lawless, executive chairman of luxury hotels group Jumeirah which is owned by the ruler of Dubai, said his company had crisis plans in place but he did not expect severe turmoil.

"I can't budget for the nuclear bomb, that's not something that's within my remit," he said. "We are not expecting a crisis and we are certainly not budgeting for one."

[snip]

The disconnect between the immense amounts of money being spent on the military and the chronic shortage …Edward Furey at 12:29 PM

There have been anti-war periods in the past, but there is too much profit for the industrial complex from the current military establishment just now.

Regarding think tank investment, those Republican ones are primarily designed to sell unpopular policies with Frank Luntz testing for the best deceitful language to use. Eventually, the disconnect will even show through the compliant media machine they have also assembled. Since the Democratic Party does not primarily serve corporate interests their task will be easier and harder: easier to find popular policies, harder to get funding for marketing. Those blaming the evangelicals for the current extremism on the right are closer to the root of Republican's problems.

There were no AK-47s, plastic explosives, or shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles in 1920. Cranky Observer at 12:32 PM

… when was the last time a Republican administration sucessfully prosecuted a war?… Neal at 1:16 PM

…Then I'm sure you won't have any trouble naming some.
…Gregory at 1:48 PM

There were a number of Democrats who voted against the war and they were all vilified by the media.

But really that's the point I'm making: to limit our strikes and invasions to situations in which that initial incursion mostly suffices to achieve what we really are seeking.

That's also what Bush etc. claimed we were doing in Iraq, limiting our invasion to a situation in which they claimed our initial incursion would be enough to achieve our aim. Remember, the original plan was going to be to go in, remove Saddam, replace him with our paid strongman Chalabi and then be out within a few months, leaving only a token force behind.

It turns out, though, that they were completely wrong about how much force would be needed and for how long, and the same would undoubtedly happen with an attack on Iran.

Hmmm...that looks like a classic "egbert" at 12:22 ("Ah, Kevin...") but it's signed "American Hawk". Did somebody at the troll shop hit the wrong macro?

And so if we knew that Iran would in few months acquire nuclear weapons, refused to give them up, and was entirely controlled by radical elements, you would argue that the US couldn't take out those weapons in a limited strike, even including a limited invasion perhaps, because doing so was "illegal"?

Oh, we are talking about 24 or some other fictional scenario. My mistake -- I thought we were discussing reality.

Your hypothetical situation, if it ever came about, might spur the kind of debate you seem to wish to have. Given that the combination of circumstances you envision to justify your opinions is, ah, a little far-fetched, I'm afraid your analysis remains faulty.

You see, you are exactly the sort of case I have in mind about how liberals have drawn very general anti-war conclusions from the Iraq war.

Well, at least you've named one, albeit in response to a response made after the fact. But not so fast -- aren't you distorting this opinion to make it fit your mold? For just one example, it's been pointed out to you that America's military victory over the militarily negligible Iraq was hardly surprising; given that, one of the legs for your revernece for American military power collapses, as does your argument. Too bad.

I would say instead that the we and the world would be safer by such an attack, and that the capability demonstrated by the US military in the early phases of the Iraq war show how we might readily accomplish such a goal.

Well, again, the capability of the US military to attack a third-rate power like Iraq -- while not without risk -- was never in doubt. As to your certainty that "we and the world would be safer by such an attack", leaving aside entirely the fact that the scenario you envision -- imminent posession of nuclear weapons by a radicalized Iran (you have, I'm compelled to observe, completely failed to address why Iran wouldn't be just as subject to deterrence as nuclear nations like India and Pakistan, which share longstanding enmity and yet manage to coexist) -- is a completely hypothetical scenario, you, true to your simplistic dualism, focus only on the attack -- which you define in such a way, if I may paraphrase, as to say "you support any attack but only if it'll work" -- ah, there's the rub! -- leaves aside the possibility of, say, an Iranian retaliatory striek in the Strait of Hormuz, which, I submit, would not make we and the world any safer, but quite the contrary.

I see cmdicely likewise signs up for the view that an attack on Iran even under the extreme circumstances I described would be wrong.

Not to speak for cmdicely, but I'm sure he recognizes the purely hypothetical nature of your "extreme circumstances," and rightly notes that unprovoked aggresson against another nation is, in fact, wrong -- a concept the US adheres to by treaty and by law, if no longer in practice under this Administration and its dupes.

And