Friday May 14, 2004 at 12:42 PM
The Pundits Get Serious
Appearing in Seen Elsewhere
While events of the past few years have provided political pundits with an unusually deep well from which to draw thier material, the very real possibility of the United States losing the war in Iraq has provided a unique opportunity to see which of our national intelligentsia is still capable of considered thought.
It is at moments like these, when the likely outcome is so dangerously close to tragic, that our writers, critics, and commentators most clearly display their true nature. And while some of the most famous commentators are proving once and for all that they are nothing but narrow-minded ideologues whose only allegiance is to their own hatreds and overgrown egos, others are clearly demonstrating their capacity to consider new information, to change their positions, and even admit mistakes.
It is this later class to which we must focus our attention as theirs are the considered positions most likely to lead us towards a better, more hopeful, more peaceful future.
To wit, a few thoughtful quotations from recent days:
- “Leave process aside: the results are plain. On almost every issue involving postwar Iraq—troop strength, international support, the credibility of exiles, de-Baathification, handling Ayatollah Ali Sistani—Washington’s assumptions and policies have been wrong. By now most have been reversed, often too late to have much effect. This strange combination of arrogance and incompetence has not only destroyed the hopes for a new Iraq. It has had the much broader effect of turning the United States into an international outlaw in the eyes of much of the world.”
- Fareed Zakaria
“The Price of Arrogance”
Newsweek
- “We are in danger of losing something much more important than just the war in Iraq. We are in danger of losing America as an instrument of moral authority and inspiration in the world. I have never known a time in my life when America and its president were more hated around the world than today. I was just in Japan, and even young Japanese dislike us. It’s no wonder that so many Americans are obsessed with the finale of the sitcom ‘Friends’ right now. They’re the only friends we have, and even they’re leaving.”
- Thomas Friedman
“Restoring Our Honor”
New York Times :: May 6, 2004
- “We went into Iraq with what, in retrospect, seems like a childish fantasy. We were going to topple Saddam, establish democracy and hand the country back to grateful Iraqis. We expected to be universally admired when it was all over. ¶ We didn’t understand the tragic irony that our power is also our weakness. As long as we seemed so mighty, others, even those we were aiming to assist, were bound to revolt. They would do so for their own self-respect. In taking out Saddam, we robbed the Iraqis of the honor of liberating themselves. The fact that they had no means to do so is beside the point.”
- David Brooks
“For Iraqis to Win, the U.S. Must Lose”
New York Times :: May 11, 2004
