Anti-war social conservatism
Andrew Sullivan picks up on what he calls an "anti-war, socially conservative surge" on the Right, with Sen. Sam Brownback's turning against the war, and with a majority of Evangelicals now saying they oppose the president's policy. Says Andrew, "Now all you have to do is add economic populism to that mix, and you've got yourself a powerful electoral combination." Oooh, oooh! Me like.
It's frustrating to get e-mails from people on the Left who assume that because I've lost faith in the president and the war, I've become some sort of liberal, and from people on the Right who believe the same thing. It only shows how distorted the war has made American politics. I'm no more enamored of the Left's social agenda than I ever was -- and my conservatism is primarily social/cultural/religious. Besides, it was realizing how this war and my initial support of it violated conservative principles that I ought to have been defending at its outset that finally turned me.
Chiefly I should have been completely suspicious of the social engineering that the US government set out to do in Iraq. It didn't work in the Great Society, and there was no reason to believe that it would work in Iraq. You don't march in and turn a tribal society that follows a fierce religion into a nation of Western-style liberal democrats. A key conservative truth is that the material order rests on the spiritual order. Iraqi society did not have the spiritual or moral wherewithal to become the kind of nation we set out to make them. It was our Jacobin hubris, our prideful belief in our own power, that got us into this mess. There were conservatives warning against this in 2002, but most of us on the Right didn't want to listen.
The thing is, I strongly believe that the president is right: we are fighting a war that's going to take generations to see through. I have been very outspoken about the threat to America and the West from Islamic fundamentalism. But this Iraq debacle -- which was unwise and unnecessary -- is going to set back the war against Islamism incalculably. I think the US should realize that in this battle, we've been licked, and we should retreat to defensible borders, so to speak, and rebuild for the next round. Because there will be a next round.
I look forward to a conservatism that is far more realistic about what America can and should do in the world. I don't want to convert the whole world to democracy at the point of a gun. I don't even want the whole world to be democratic, at least not now. Democracy in the Palestinian areas has only served to empower the Jew-hating terrorists of Hamas. I want a conservatism that looks out after American interests narrowly defined. I want a conservatism that takes this war seriously (that means not putting unqualified personal loyalists like Karen Hughes in charge of the critical information war that we're hardly fighting). And frankly, I want a conservatism that takes border security instead of corporate interests seriously.
I appreciate e-mails from conservatives -- including a couple whose names many on the Right would know as staunchly right-wing -- who applaud my NPR essay, and who say that it's time for the Right to do some serious soul-searching about our beliefs and priorities. As I wrote in my book "Crunchy Cons," there are a lot of policies and ways of thinking that go under the label "conservative" that are in fact not conservative at all. I didn't write about the war in my book because my own views on the war were evolving at the time. Had I to do it again, I would say that the idea that the United States should commit its blood and treasure to crusading into the heart of the Middle East and attempting to fashion a liberal secular democracy in a nest of tribal Islamist vipers is not remotely conservative. I see that now. I didn't then.
It's time for the Right to quit trying to salvage the discredit ed Bush vision, and to instead pioneer a more realistic and sensibly conservative foreign policy that is no mimicking of old-style Democratic dovishness, but is muscular and hard-eyed in its assessment of American interests abroad. We are in this war with Islamists for decades, and we've got to fight smarter. I don't see that the Left has any serious ideas (yet) on how to prevail. Our big idea on the Right has blown up in our collective faces. Now what? I think the most important contribution conservatism will make to the debate going forward is a deep understanding of how decisive culture is to the making (or un-making) of societies. That, and an appreciation of the tragic sense of life. I don't think that's been much a part of American conservatism for a long time. Perhaps the Iraq catastrophe will change that. Perhaps.
But chances are, quite a few conservatives will choose to believe that the news media caused us to lose there, and will therefore learn nothing. And the Angry Left will be so busy shrieking "I told you so" and seeking whatever psychological and emotional comforts there are to be had from gloating that they will refuse to learn any useful lessons from this experience either. Dark times ahead.
It's frustrating to get e-mails from people on the Left who assume that because I've lost faith in the president and the war, I've become some sort of liberal, and from people on the Right who believe the same thing. It only shows how distorted the war has made American politics. I'm no more enamored of the Left's social agenda than I ever was -- and my conservatism is primarily social/cultural/religious. Besides, it was realizing how this war and my initial support of it violated conservative principles that I ought to have been defending at its outset that finally turned me.
Chiefly I should have been completely suspicious of the social engineering that the US government set out to do in Iraq. It didn't work in the Great Society, and there was no reason to believe that it would work in Iraq. You don't march in and turn a tribal society that follows a fierce religion into a nation of Western-style liberal democrats. A key conservative truth is that the material order rests on the spiritual order. Iraqi society did not have the spiritual or moral wherewithal to become the kind of nation we set out to make them. It was our Jacobin hubris, our prideful belief in our own power, that got us into this mess. There were conservatives warning against this in 2002, but most of us on the Right didn't want to listen.
The thing is, I strongly believe that the president is right: we are fighting a war that's going to take generations to see through. I have been very outspoken about the threat to America and the West from Islamic fundamentalism. But this Iraq debacle -- which was unwise and unnecessary -- is going to set back the war against Islamism incalculably. I think the US should realize that in this battle, we've been licked, and we should retreat to defensible borders, so to speak, and rebuild for the next round. Because there will be a next round.
I look forward to a conservatism that is far more realistic about what America can and should do in the world. I don't want to convert the whole world to democracy at the point of a gun. I don't even want the whole world to be democratic, at least not now. Democracy in the Palestinian areas has only served to empower the Jew-hating terrorists of Hamas. I want a conservatism that looks out after American interests narrowly defined. I want a conservatism that takes this war seriously (that means not putting unqualified personal loyalists like Karen Hughes in charge of the critical information war that we're hardly fighting). And frankly, I want a conservatism that takes border security instead of corporate interests seriously.
I appreciate e-mails from conservatives -- including a couple whose names many on the Right would know as staunchly right-wing -- who applaud my NPR essay, and who say that it's time for the Right to do some serious soul-searching about our beliefs and priorities. As I wrote in my book "Crunchy Cons," there are a lot of policies and ways of thinking that go under the label "conservative" that are in fact not conservative at all. I didn't write about the war in my book because my own views on the war were evolving at the time. Had I to do it again, I would say that the idea that the United States should commit its blood and treasure to crusading into the heart of the Middle East and attempting to fashion a liberal secular democracy in a nest of tribal Islamist vipers is not remotely conservative. I see that now. I didn't then.
It's time for the Right to quit trying to salvage the discredit ed Bush vision, and to instead pioneer a more realistic and sensibly conservative foreign policy that is no mimicking of old-style Democratic dovishness, but is muscular and hard-eyed in its assessment of American interests abroad. We are in this war with Islamists for decades, and we've got to fight smarter. I don't see that the Left has any serious ideas (yet) on how to prevail. Our big idea on the Right has blown up in our collective faces. Now what? I think the most important contribution conservatism will make to the debate going forward is a deep understanding of how decisive culture is to the making (or un-making) of societies. That, and an appreciation of the tragic sense of life. I don't think that's been much a part of American conservatism for a long time. Perhaps the Iraq catastrophe will change that. Perhaps.
But chances are, quite a few conservatives will choose to believe that the news media caused us to lose there, and will therefore learn nothing. And the Angry Left will be so busy shrieking "I told you so" and seeking whatever psychological and emotional comforts there are to be had from gloating that they will refuse to learn any useful lessons from this experience either. Dark times ahead.
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