An oft stated issue that the Right has with immigration is their fear that immigrants will not assimilate into American culture. To be fair, this argument is not given prominence by the conservative posters at SwordsCrossed, but it's featured more prominently on other conservative sites and is always at the back of any discussion of this issue.
What does that have to do with Iraq? Let me state, first off, that I think we can take the Right's word for their principal motivation in invading Iraq. They believed that toppling Saddam would lead to the development of a western-looking, secular, democratic state that would favor America and in turn spread secular democracy to neighboring countries. This was, of course, and absurd fantasy, but I think they believed it.
The core of this fantasy is the idea that, after Saddam, the Iraqis would adapt, with the help of 130,000 troops and perhaps 10,000 American advisors, western modes of politics, law, and social interaction. But what is this except an attempt to assimilate 26 million people into an different culture? If they're afraid that our nation of 300 million cannot assimilate 11 million people who desperately wanted to be here, how can they imagine that 150,000 Americans will be able to assimilate 26 million Iraqis, many of them actively hostile to our presences in their own country.
Further, why is it that conservatives fear that the 11 million or so illegal immigrants here won't assimilate? The entire history of the United States consists of waves of immigration, each met with shouts of "no, they're too different". But each wave has assimilated, generally by early in the second generation. Clearly, this is happening with the current wave of Mexican and Central American refugees. Why can't the conservatives see this?
Look at it this way -- what group in recent American history has themselves completely rejected the idea of assimilation? What group, rather than accept the status quo and broad American public opinion has instead worked behind the scenes to change the nature of American political and social life? What group has perfected the art of polling and polemics in order to work against an established social order they did not approve of?
Of course, it's the conservative movement itself. Conservatives fear a failure to assimlate because they themselves are the major force in recent American history acting against assimiliation. Knowing both their own motives and the degree to which they've been effective in changing society, they see the same motives and the same danger in others.
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