Dog Bites Man; Neocon Spews Insanity

Via Majikthise: Stanley Kurtz says that the real reason the US is in Iraq is to show Iran it means business, and therefore the American public must support the Iraq war.

[Link] I agree that the key is for America to perceive Iraq as a success. My point is that the quick democratization standard was mistaken. We created a false standard for success, and that is our problem. Once we focus on the big picture, and off of the false standard of quick democratization, the public will see Iraq in a new way. It will take a debate about Iran to make that change, and it won't be easy, but that is what's needed. We need to see peace and democracy in Iraq is icing on the cake. The real goal is the proof of resolve against Iran and others [Emphasis added]. If the public sees that, it might change its view of what's important and what success means.

In Lindsay's comment thread, I explain how this rhetoric is typical of blind patriotism. Like other ideologues, nationalists won't admit mistakes; in particular, when their wars fail, they always blame someone else. In other words, Kurtz is just preparing the ground for a stab-in-the-back myth, like the one circulated by German nationalists after World War One, or by American nationalists after Vietnam. In 15 years, the patriots will again blame the defeat on liberal subversion or lack of resolve.

In similar vein, other ideologues always shift the blame when their preferred method doesn't work. Libertarians never acknowledge that a privatization or deregulation scheme was a failure; instead, they say any problem with it is due to lingering government regulations. Communists never acknowledge that agricultural collectivization causes mass starvation. Since there is no such thing as a pure application of an ideology, the fact-ignoring idealist can always blame any problems on the impurities, no matter how trivial or irrelevant.

It's sometimes useful to blame a failure on lack of full implementation, but it requires evidence. I know of three stab-in-the-back myths: the German one about World War One, the American one about Vietnam, and the Western one about decolonization. None has anything backing it up but wishful thinking. Similarly, I have yet to see any libertarian acknowledge a failure of privatization or deregulation, or a communist acknowledge a failure of collectivization.

It's usual for neocons to twist into shapes more complex than the tertiary structure of proteins. What's new is that one of them is promoting the stab-in-the-back myth before the war has even ended; to my knowledge, the previous nationalists and colonialists at least waited until after the defeat to blame the liberals' lack of will.