A person becomes an adult when they reach the point where they stop hurting themselves. As a nation we will have reached adulthood when we are able to stop doing things that hurt our country.
Immaturity justifies self destruction by blaming others. For example, the immature teenager says "life is confusing and school sucks so I'm going to use drugs." Getting high won't help make life less confusing, nor will it make school suck less. It will, however, decrease one's ability to deal with those realities. Addicts are known for justifying behavior that's clearly self destructive and sticking with it no matter what the cost.
The war in Iraq was created by America's power elite for perfectly logical, even idealistic reasons: to protect ourselves, to spread our noble way of life, to foster peace and security, to liberate an oppressed people and to bring justice to a madman. Not much there to argue against. That is the problem. The fact is our logical underpinnings don't matter. Even if there were WMD in Iraq, we don't have enough of anything required - expertise, money, equipment, expendable lives, allies, time or patience - to invade, control and re-organize a Middle Eastern country. Period. There is no "But..." If America was a mature, sober country we would have said to Bush - "your rationale is all well and good- but we don't have the ways and means. Let's figure out another way to protect ourselves." It doesn't matter if invading Iraq made logical or ideological sense. Reality said it wasn't possible.
Our leaders didn't fail us ideologically- they failed to get real. America supported removing weapons of mass destruction - that's not an ideological motive - but only a country detached from reality - or an addict - could think invading Iraq would make everything all right and stop the world from sucking. Just as addicts must give up the self destructive notion that drugs will make it all better we must give up our national self delusion that believes we can ignore reality because we are America. America can't make it all better. Liberals, neo-cons, libertarians, conservatives, progressives - we all want to use America to make the world stop sucking so much.
Our national America Will Make It All Better ideology has become a lethal drug- and our politicians are our dealers. Our dealers tell us we are far and away the richest, most powerful country on earth, unmatched by any other. Liberals, progressives, conservatives- Americans of all stripes - are found of saying "the richest country on earth ought to be able to..." We Americans have rationalized self destructive behavior and our ability to withstand damage, and, like drug addicts, we have clung to our self justifications in the face of a reality that says we are being hurt and hurt badly.
Iraq has shown us reality and reality says we are not as strong and rich as some of us thought: and now we wretch and moan as we go through ideological withdrawal: increasingly our resources are needed here at home, and there is less and less available for outside problems no matter how pressing. we have just enough strength to defend ourselves against an attack on our own shores - but that's it, just ask anyone from New Orleans - we cannot project meaningful military power around the globe beyond cruise missiles and air strikes. The good news is that should be enough. We should be careful to notice that defeating our real enemy - Osama Bin Laden - was well within our means. As soon as we left reality and looked to Iraq we came up short. We can handle reality just fine. If we stay in reality we will be able to handle whatever comes our way.
Reality also tells us that our government is incapable of creating foreign policy dependent upon understanding cultures not rooted in our own, and, most importantly, despite our sincerity, that it is not at all impressed with our idealism. Bush once said that God told him to invade Iraq. Yes, George, reality trumps even God. I'd rather go fifteen rounds with Bush's God than cross reality any day.
Depending on who you talk to Iraq was a bad idea to begin with or it was a good idea which failed because Bush was incompetent, or it was a good idea but Iraq, a country of enemies forced to live together for centuries, was not ready for democracy - which means invading was a bad idea - unless you wanted to replace Hussein with another Hussein, which is a really, really bad idea.
The fact is nobody knows whether or not invading Iraq was a good idea. Hillary Clinton seems to think we could have succeeded if not for Bush. Certainly Dubya made things horrible. Disbanding the Iraqi army created huge problems, for example, but keeping it together would have created huge problems, too. Incompetence is not an attribute exclusive to the Bush Administration. The boys over at Fox News are delighted to point out past presidential war time blunders-especially Lincoln's. All wars suffer from incompetence and bad planning.
But even if Bush got everything right, as Hillary hoped, it's clear that a higher standard of administrative competence could not have prevented Iraq's long dormant civil war from igniting once Hussein was removed. The question is would 500,000 troops have kept a lid on things? Many say yes. Nobody who says putting 250,000 to 500,000 troops on the ground after toppling Hussein mentions we could never afford to keep such troop levels in Iraq long enough to keep civil war from breaking out somewhere down the road. We couldn't afford any invasion scenario. That was abundantly clear four years ago whether or not we could somehow protect ourselves by saving the Middle East. We didn't grasp this on a national level because we are addicts out of touch with reality.
The addict says driving the car drunk and crashing was basically a good idea mishandled, gets in a cab and vows to drink less when driving in the future. Fat chance. The about to die addict gets back in the car he's just wrecked and says "once more into the breach!" - and tries to make it home. The sober man stopped drinking altogether, rebuilt his life and made amends for the damage he caused while driving drunk. He admits it was never possible to continue to drink and avoid crashing his car. What are our dealers doing? Hillary's gonna keep drinking and driving and vow to be more careful. Bush is back in the car ripped off his ass, bleeding from head to toe whimpering "once more into the breach." That guy is a nightmare. If we are to sober up from this horrible four year bender we must admit it was never possible for an invasion of Iraq to succeed regardless of how much sense it makes, and that no amount of effort and resources can change reality.
Nobody has the foggiest idea how to make Iraq all better, and reality doesn't give a rat's ass whether we figure it out or not. Reality isn't interested in what we'd like to do. The debate over Bush's plan is wasted energy. It doesn't matter what we think we ought to be able to do to protect ourselves. We will just have to deal with Post-Bush Iraq after we leave as best we can, keeping in mind reality rarely if ever overwhelms our ability to protect ourselves. The war in Iraq is doing more to harm us than any attack terrorists could muster at this point. We cannot afford any idea, any mission, any use of force - any strategy in Iraq. We don't get to use Iraq to effect regional security in the Middle East. We don't get to help spread democracy or keep Al Qaeda from gaining a foothold in Iraq. We must stop our national tantrum. We cannot afford to fight the war. End of story. If America stays, America dies. We need to get the hell out, sober up, deal with reality, and learn to stop justifying behavior that hurts our country.
