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Four years on, skeptics awake

By E.J. DIONNE JR. Washington Post writers group
Published March 21, 2007

WASHINGTON - To understand how much the Iraq war has transformed the way most Americans think about foreign policy, consider what passed for shrewd analysis four years ago.

The words on the "in" list included "unilateral," "bold," "robust," "transformative" and "sole remaining superpower." The words on the "out" list included "multilateral," "nuance," "patience," "diplomacy," "allies," "history" and "prudence."

Today, the "in" and "out" lists would be almost exactly reversed. The new "out" list includes such additions as "reckless, "arrogant" and "incompetent."

With so many establishmentarians now running away from the war, many would prefer to forget the political mood at 10:15 p.m. on March 19, 2003, when President Bush announced that "at this hour American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger."

Politics did not stop at the water's edge. The March 20, 2003, edition of the Washington Post in which Bush's speech was reported also included this headline: "GOP to Hammer Democratic War Critics." The report began: "Congressional Republicans are implicitly challenging the patriotism of some Democrats who have criticized President Bush's war plans, a sign that the divisive politics marking the 108th Congress are unlikely to cease during wartime."

Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, then chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, predicted that Democrats would "pay a political price" for feeding the perception that they opposed disarming and deposing Saddam Hussein. Those who now bemoan our politically polarized foreign policy debate should remember how it started.

When the argument over invading Iraq was publicly joined in the summer of 2002, many mainstream Republicans were queasy. That September, Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., told me his constituents were "concerned about a go-it-alone strategy" and Rep. Thomas Petri, R-Wis., said voters in his district expressed "concern about whether we know what we're doing or how we're going to do it."

The concerns of those good citizens in the heartland were never answered because the administration was so successful in creating a lockstep mood, trumping doubters with extravagant claims about perils emanating from mushroom clouds and aluminum tubes.

The process of twisting the facts continued for four years. Every setback in Iraq was first ignored, then denied, then explained away as temporary.

Is it any wonder that the war's remaining supporters are getting so little traction when they claim that the surge is really working and that Bush should be given one more chance to get the war right? Patriotic skeptics have heard it before. You reap what you sow.

Foreign policy hawks fear an "Iraq Syndrome" involving a pathological wariness about the use of American force and an unhealthy mistrust of every word coming out of the White House.

On the contrary, this botched war is far more likely to lead to what might properly be called the post-Bush Awakening. It is an awakening to the danger of viewing critics as traitors, to the costs of making everything about politics, and to the sad tendency of establishmentarians to seek refuge within the boundaries of prevailing opinion.

It is also an awakening to the wise skepticism of everyday Americans toward ideologues who devoutly believe that optional wars of their own design can miraculously change the world.

None of this means that American opinion has become isolationist. But those who spent the last four years hyping threats, underestimating costs, ignoring rational warnings, painting unrealistic futures and savaging their opponents have been discredited. This awakening is the first step toward rebuilding our country's influence and power.

[Last modified March 20, 2007, 21:23:13]