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2 The general and the
trap By Ira Chernus
It
was supposed to be a "cakewalk". General David
Petraeus would come to the US Congress on Tuesday,
armed with his favorite charts showing that the
"surge" had dramatically reduced violence in Iraq.
He would earn universal acclaim for his plan to
"pause" troop reductions from July until after the
presidential election in November - the same plan
that Republican John McCain counts on to help him
win that election.
When it comes to Iraq,
though, the George W Bush administration's
cakewalks never seem to turn out as planned. The
renewed violence of these past weeks in Iraq, and
the prospect of more to come, gives war critics
ample ammunition for a counterattack. The
Democrats, including Senators Hillary Clinton and
Barack Obama, may find it irresistible to assault the
general, and the
president, with every argument they can muster in
the hearings this week. However, a recent report
suggests they may resist that impulse and treat
the impact of the "surge" as an irrelevant issue.
Let's hope that report is right, because a
debate focused on military success or failure is a
trap, with Petraeus' testimony as the bait. After
all, no debate in Congress will really be about
the level of violence in Iraq. "Has the surge
worked?" is just a symbolic way of asking: "Would
you rather believe that America is a winner or a
loser?" And in any battle over patriotic
symbolism, the Republicans always seem to have the
bigger guns.
So the Democrats would be
smart to refuse the bait and insist that this is
not an old-fashioned World War II-style conflict,
where force can produce a clearcut winner. Then
they could refocus the debate on two crucial
truths: we have no right to be in Iraq; the sooner
we get out, the sooner we can begin to heal the
terrible damage the war has done to us here at
home.
Decoding the battle over Iraq
It should have been obvious all along that
the Republicans do not mean it literally when they
claim that reducing violence in Iraq is their
highest priority. It's not likely that too many of
them care a whole lot about the killing and
maiming of Iraqis. So when they speak so urgently
about lower levels of violence, it's a coded way
of saying something else; in fact, a lot of
things.
For starters, "reduced violence"
is a way to conjure up an image of American
"success" in a war in which no real success
(forget about "victory") is possible. The level of
violence is the only concrete yardstick the
administration has come up with to gauge the
success of the "surge" - no small matter when a
successful surge has become the prime symbol of
achievement for US troops and so for the
president's (and John McCain's) war policies.
Because the Bush administration still hopes to
sell its failing war to the public by turning it
into a gripping story of winners and losers,
"violence" has been its currency, its coin of the
realm.
Since that story took hold,
supporters of Bush's Iraq policy have insisted
that violence there really has been subsiding,
hence that his "surge" strategy has worked. When
Democrats and other war critics rejected that
claim, they sparked a battle over who has the
right, and the proper criteria, to evaluate the
surge and its post-surge effects. So
violence-lowering success in Iraq also became a
symbolic measure of the president's political
success here at home.
In fact, the home
front is key - as it has been for years. Bush came
into office as the hero of the right, not because
he had sworn to defeat terrorism (that didn't
start until September 11, 2001), but because he
had sworn to defeat 1960s-style liberalism and
"secular humanism". For conservatives the war in
Iraq, the "war on terrorism", and the political
and cultural wars at home have all been symbols of
the same long-term struggle against trends they
see undermining the fabric of American society.
By choosing McCain to lead their troops in
presidential battle, Republicans have voted with
their feet. In effect, they have decided to make
all their cherished battles hinge on the battle
over Iraq policy and the "surge".
When
McCain talks about Iraq, his words always point up
the symbolic nature of the battle there. He offers
no reasonable idea of who we are fighting or why.
In fact, on the occasions when he brings the
matter up, he seems remarkably confused about the
actual cast of characters in that country. As a
result, he can offer no sensible outline of what
"victory" in Iraq might mean.
Since
McCain's talk about the war is really a code, it
makes perfect sense to feature that Bush-era
bogeyman, al-Qaeda, as our main enemy in Iraq.
Al-Qaeda, after all, is "the terrorists" and we
are always fighting "the terrorists". It makes no
less sense, in his symbolic universe, to insist
that al-Qaeda terrorists are being trained in
Iran, a country whose leadership is deeply hostile
to that organization. All enemies are
interchangeable, because all are merely symbols of
a vaguely defined sense of uncontrolled evil,
which is said to threaten America's security and
moral virtue at home and abroad.
Bush was
supposed to defeat that evil. He has obviously
failed. Now, conservatives pin their hopes on a
new champion whose mantra is: "no surrender".
American 'stability' In
addition to "reduced violence", the "surge" and
"no surrender", the Republicans wield another
symbol of America as a righteous winner: the goal
of achieving "stability" in Iraq. It may be the
most seductive image of all, because it exerts a
strong appeal across the political spectrum.
Five years ago, when American forces
quickly dismantled Iraqi society, liberal as well
as conservative pundits announced that it was up
to our forces to restore "stability" - as if the
Iraqis themselves had wrought the chaos from which
we were to rescue them. Though the American
military did most of the destabilizing in Iraq,
this historical fact was set aside in favor of the
hoary myth that America is invariably a force for
good, uniquely dedicated and qualified to bring
order out of chaos around the world.
War -
righteous, courageous and ultimately victorious -
has always been a central theme in the American
myth of stability. Pollsters still take that myth
for granted, and reinforce it, when they ask
pointed questions like: "How would you say things
are going for the US in its efforts to bring
stability and order to Iraq?" or "Should the US
maintain its current troop level in Iraq to help
secure peace and stability, or reduce its number
of troops?"
Vietnam dealt this mythology a
near-fatal blow. Nearly four decades later, at a
time when conservatives, moderates, and even many
liberals worry about all sorts of forces that seem
to threaten the nation's cohesion and moral fiber,
reviving a cherished national
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