Michael Hirsch, onetime hawk writing at
Newsweek, has left the roost.
How then did we arrive at this day, with anti-American Islamist governments rising in the Mideast, bin Laden sneering at us, Qaeda lieutenants escaping from prison, Iran brazenly enriching uranium, and America as hated and mistrusted as it ever has been? The answer, in a word, is incompetence.
And "incompetence" it has to be for the intellectuals. Republican politicians face a grimmer decision.
It's been clear since about 6 months after the invasion that "incompetence" would have to serve as the hawks' excuse. Francis Fukuyama got his excuse card in a few days ago, now it's Michael Hirsch. There really is no other way to go for the hawks (and, more directly, the neocons - I don't know whether Hirsch is counted among them, but it doesn't matter in this context). To admit that: 1) the US did not have the power to invade and hold Iraq; 2)the hawks were making a political call to support Bush; and 3) the Bush administration was determined to invade Iraq no matter what - to admit this would require them to abdicate their political philosophy and goals, and they are not willing to do that. yet.
Hirsch attempts to make a case for Republican politicians "revolting," but so far we see some rote phrases and then the Republican politicians find a way to do Bush's bidding. Because their problem is that the Republican party has invested all its political (not financial) capital in George Bush's person. Is there a Republican party separate from the goal of providing support to George Bush? I don't think so. There're a few paleo-conservatives, but there are no moderate Republicans with any influence within the party. The whole party is domesticated to Bush-support.
And it's going to get worse for them. Three more years to watch the working-out of Bush's policies. The whole party has no other ethos than supporting Bush. To back away on any matter is to abdicate their political philosophy. It really gives me a window onto monarchies, and how "the king's bad advisors" was so often floated as an excuse.
I don't know Hirsch's politics, but, as a hawk, he pretty much had to go with the incompetence theme. I will be watching what excuse the Republican politicians come up with, as I can't imagine anything at this moment.
Unfortunately, we will have to suffer the consequences as well.