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Of course, for the neocons, the Bush White House, the Vice President and his crew, and various military and intelligence types, the real villains will not, in the end, be themselves. Count on this: The "weak-willed" American people will take the brunt of the official blame (with the "liberal" media, Democratic and Republican politicians who opposed the war, and the antiwar movement, as well as the incompetence of anyone but the speaker of the moment, thrown in for good measure).
As Ira Chernus points out below, we've heard this tune before -- and once upon a time, in the post-Vietnam years, it ended up playing us for a long, long while. The question is: Will history repeat itself in the wake of an American defeat in the Middle East?
Will We Suffer from the Iraq Syndrome?
Beware of the Boomerang
By Ira Chernus
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Iraq -- both the war and the "syndrome" to come -- could easily evoke a similar set of urges: to evade a painful reality and ignore the lessons it should teach us. The thought that Americans are simply a collective neurotic head-case when it comes to the use of force could help sow similar seeds of insecurity that might -- after a pause -- again push our politics and culture back to a glorification of military power and imperial intervention as instruments of choice for seeking "security."
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Identity Crisis in a Losing War
By now, in the midst of policy and military disaster, victory culture has narrowed to "supporting our troops." Congress cannot defund the war because lawmakers fear the ultimate charge of betrayal, a Congressional "stab in the back" for failing to "support our troops." The obvious logical response -- "The best way to support our troops is to bring them home to their loved ones" -- doesn't cut it in today's political climate. With not a shred of victory in sight, "our troops" have become the prime symbol of both American virtue and insecurity, the prime reason to stay in Iraq now that every other publicly ballyhooed reason has disappeared.
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It would, however, be hard to avoid seeing any kind of withdrawal from Iraq as a retreat under fire, as a quitting of the field of battle, as an admission that the U.S. cannot always save faraway people in faraway places. That, too, would call into question all the traditional stories that are still so widely seen as the bulwark of American identity.
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On the other hand, the very fact that Iraq is a second humiliation may make it all the more urgent for many Americans to put it behind them, to deny the painful reality. The frustration over not getting the ending we deserve remains palpable. And it's only likely to rise as the situation worsens. So the public could in the post-war years just as easily put the blame where Ronald Reagan put it after Vietnam -- on "the purveyors of weakness" (oppositional, incompetent, or micromanaging politicians and bureaucrats, the media, the antiwar movement) -- and turn back to the Reaganite (and neoconservative) mantra of "peace and security through strength."
Then we'll be told that Iraq, too, was just an aberration, a well-intentioned war handled with a staggering level of incompetence that simply got out of control. Those who don't want to repeat the experience, who prefer to try other paths to global security, will be told they are infected with the Iraq syndrome. And the prescription for a cure will inevitably be military buildup, imperial war, and, of course, the possibility of both "kicking" the Iraq syndrome and welcoming our troops home in the sort of triumph they so richly deserve.
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