Sympathy for the Neocons

"He [Thomas Friedman] could be right [that Iraq is like Viet Nam]," George W. Bush said this week, after three years of fighting and occupation in Iraq, three years during which it was expressly forbidden, not allowed at all, for anyone to point out the obvious similarities with the Viet Nam Conflict: a nebulous goal, invisible enemies, steadily dwindling public support and moral high ground, winning every battle but losing the war.

Bush even went so far as to offer the similarities he saw between the 1968 Tet offensive and the 2006 opposition in Iraq: "There's certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we're heading into an election." Oh, if only those were the only similarities.

I am going to be very kind toward my neoconservative fellow Americans in this piece, because doing so does not compromise my position or my principles. If anything, it reaffirms them.

It must be very hard indeed to see one's hero engaging in failed nation-building, Bush's other failures aside. My neoconservative fellow Americans must be feeling quite disappointed right now, if "disappointed" is the word, to realize the Emperor on whom they'd pinned all their fondest hopes and long-simmering hatred of Hussein wears no clothes.

"But he still champions their causes," you say. Yes, he does, but look where that has brought us. No; George W. Bush will go down in History as both the patron saint of the neoconservative "movement" and its sacrificial lamb. Pushed by, or leading, its most passionate members (take your pick), George W. Bush took the neoconservative baton and ran with it as far as he could go. The limits of safety, peace, and Reason were crossed. The Public now responds, and Mister Bush, never legitimate, finds himself in the World's biggest quandary, of his own making. This is a moment worthy of Greek tragedy, without the nobility of Oedipus, who took all the blame and blinded himself though he was merely the pawn of the Gods.

Here we have a president who went to mistaken war and occupation against the advice, requests, urgings, and pleas of the World. Much more than Oedipus, he deserves his fate.

But I still feel sorry for his followers. They were duped. This realization, to the extent it occurs, can only produce deep shame and remorse.

It's all right, friends. Recognizing you were wrong is the first step toward growth and improvement. The next will be to stop committing further error, and to lend your hands to the repair of the damage Bush hath wrought.

Unlike Bush, you have committed no crimes. And it's never too late to change course.

"I told you so," offers little comfort, when thousands are dead or wounded for life, for one man's folly.