On Friday, Victor Davis Hanson wrote an important piece for NationalReviewOnline --reprinted at his own web site-- which assessed and categorized the two prevailing views in America on the war. The creeping appeasement of the majority view concludes that the global war on terror "is insidiously winding down to a police matter," and further asserts that the "[b]illions spent in lives and treasure in Iraq did not make us any safer; the passing of time, the dissipation of passions, and increased vigilance did."
"If there ever were need for strong military action and invasion," The "Majority Opinion" asserts, "that time is clearly past, at least for now."
VDH goes on to chart the "Minority Dissent." Here are the key graphs describing its core convictions:
We really are in a global war. Its dimensions are hard to conceptualize since our enemies, while aided and abetted by sympathetic Middle Eastern dictatorships, claim no national affinity. Indeed, the terrorists deliberately mask the role of their patrons. The latter, given understandable fears of the overwhelming conventional power of the United States military, deny culpability.
In an age of globalization and miniaturized weapons of mass destruction, it is even more difficult to convince Western publics that they may well face peril from state-sponsored terrorists every bit as great as what the Wehrmacht, Imperial Japan, or the Red Army once posed.
While there are regional theaters of conflict predicated on local grievances — as in the multiplicity of fighting during World War II in China, Ethiopia, Poland, Finland, France, North Africa, the Balkans, Russia, the Pacific, etc. — there is nevertheless once more a transnational ideology that seeks to force its worldviews on others.
Like fascism or Communism, Islamism galvanizes millions with its reductionist claims of Western liberal culpability for widely diverse Muslim gripes from Afghanistan to the West Bank. Rather than seeing a plethora of grievances that can be individually addressed, it is more valuable and accurate to understand the problem as a general complaint that in turn manifests itself in different regions and circumstances. While Cypriots or Tibetans don’t blow themselves up over lost land or honor, those energized with Islamist ideology often do. While Hindu, Christian, or Buddhist fundamentalists don’t appreciate popular culture mocking their religion, Islamists are the most likely to assassinate or threaten the novelist or cartoonist as the supposed blasphemer.
Islamic fascism exists, then, as a reactionary creed that sees traditional Islamic culture threatened with Western-inspired global liberalization and modernization. Drawing on the Middle East’s sense of misery and victimization by others, its narrative harkens back to a purer age.
VDH clearly signs the Minority's dissent, as do I and most serious people. I think the ISG's report will be a one week story, and that the Administration, still run by those believing in the reality and danger of the war, will continue to pursue victory in Iraq and will not shrink from the almost inevitable confrontation with Iran or from backing Israel and Lebanon's democrats in a confrontation with Syria. All three top tier candidates for the presidency from the GOP side --Mayor Giuliani, Senator McCain, and Governor Romney-- are all in the same camp as the president, and thus the 2008 campaign will be fought over this divide.
Professor Hanson has once again stated clearly the stakes and the perspectives. Clip and save or bookmark. My only quarrel is in his titles. The "Majority Opinion" is clearly the party of appeasement (and it includes some Republicans but is mostly made up of Democrats) and the party of victory (and it contains some Democrats, but is mostly made up of Republicans.) The 2006 elections have had the useful effect of clarifying the struggle between these two camps, and it isn't over the minimum wage or fixes, small or large, in the prescription drug program.
UPDATE: The uniformed military gets it. General Pace's study group will provide a serious assessment of the war. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) provides a glimpse of that assessment's likely recommendations:
As demands mount to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq, a growing number of senior military officials are arguing that the only way to salvage the situation is to add more U.S. forces and more U.S. money....
Right now there are about 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Though there are no firm plans for an increase, some military officials said that as many as 30,000 more troops could be needed. Most of the U.S. troops would be focused on patrolling Baghdad and training the Iraqi Army....
The push among the uniformed military to do more in Iraq is being driven, in part, by a small study group working for Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The group's work, which is classified, lays out several options for Iraq. But it seems to favor a temporary increase in U.S. forces as part of a broader effort to build the Iraqi Army, says an officer familiar with its work.
The officers' recommendations largely run counter to Mr. Rumsfeld's own ideas, which were revealed in a leaked memorandum written by Mr. Rumsfeld in early November and published yesterday by the New York Times. In the memo Mr. Rumsfeld suggests a pulling back of U.S. forces to bigger bases and possible withdrawals of U.S. troops "so the Iraqis know they have to pull up their socks, step up and take responsibility for their country."
"The notion that we can't provide protection for people in one of the capital cities of this world [Baghdad] is just rubbish," says retired Gen. Jack Keane, who has made trips to Iraq to meet with commanders and provide recommendations to senior military officials. Gen. Keane, who advocates sending more U.S. forces into Baghdad neighborhoods and bolstering the Iraq Army, says he is speaking for himself.
Active duty Army officers have also stepped forward publicly in recent days to call for a redoubling of the U.S. commitment in Iraq. Col. Bill Hix, who spent 13 months in Iraq as the chief strategist for Gen. George Casey, wrote last week in Stanford University's Hoover Digest that more money is needed in the country for reconstruction. At the same time he suggested that it would be a mistake to pull out U.S. troops. "Iraq is simply in no position to progress politically or economically without assistance," wrote Col. Hix, who is now a strategist in the Pentagon. He suggests finding $20 billion to revive the anemic and largely ineffective U.S.-led reconstruction effort.
UPDATE 2: Michael Barone gets it.:
Bush, like Truman and Churchill, seems determined not to concede defeat. And remember that for Truman on Korea and for Churchill after Dunkirk, no promising military courses were immediately apparent. Truman, after firing Gen. Douglas MacArthur, had forsaken the threat -- a nuclear attack -- that his successor Dwight Eisenhower deployed to get the communists to agree to a truce.
But Truman's perseverance despite his 22 percent job approval -- much lower than Bush's -- was essential in preserving the independence of South Korea, which now has the world's 14th-largest economy. Churchill, facing Hitler alone, could promise only "blood, toil, tears and sweat" until his enemies' mistakes -- Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union, the Japanese strike on Pearl Harbor -- gave him the allies that made victory possible.
Churchill's stubbornness prevented a Nazi victory in midsummer 1940.
We should keep in mind, as well, Bush's repeated vow not to allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. That's in tension with the Iraq Study Group's expected recommendation of direct negotiations with Iran: The obvious quid pro quo for Iranian help in stabilizing Iraq would be dropping our opposition to Iran's nuclear program. In fact, the opposite approach may be what's needed.