Neoconservatives Share the Blame

The most hardcore supporters of the Bush administration -- hawkish, authoritarian, big-government conservatives, also known as neoconservatives -- seem to perceive that the war in Iraq is heading in the wrong direction, and while maintaining optimistic, they are unmistakably preparing themselves for the worst. How can we tell this? They are increasingly emphasizing the role of Democrats in supporting the war in Iraq during its conception in 2003, in an attempt to lighten the burden of failure likely to fall on Bush and the Republican party.

Articles like The Democrats' War, just published on National Review Online, are clearly not written with any sort of great victory in Iraq in mind. The day Republicans begin attributing any policy to Democrats is the day you know they have lost faith in success, or at least find victory to be very unlikely. Coming amidst the constant outpour of blind optimism from the same conservative outlets -- such as the new Victor Davis Hanson piece Anatomy of Iraq (pathetically subtitled "It All Could Change" on the NRO front page) -- this kind of hedging is telling.

In the face of such a horrific picture in Iraq, Bush's cheerleaders have apparently come up with a 2-pronged plan of political posturing: First, they must constantly emphasize the possibility of victory, so that if things do turn around they can thumb their noses at all who doubted them. This tactic also allows them to blame any failure on the lack of "resolve" or interference of the usual suspects -- the left, the media, etc. Second, they must spread the blame as widely as possible, just as they tried to do with the flawed WMD intelligence ("But everyone agreed that Saddam had WMDs..."), so that in the event of failure, their opponents can not only be pinned with responsibility for losing the war, but for starting it as well.

This is not to say that many Democrats do not deserve to share in the blame for gleefully marching off to war. It does, however, reveal that Republicans do not think that this war is winnable. If they thought that the chance of victory was even a mere 50/50 -- and statements by the Bush administration certainly suggest far more than that -- there would be no sense in giving Democrats credit for starting the war. Considering this, the constant accusations by hawkish conservatives that their opponents are "defeatist" and "giving up" are revealed as so much political posturing. It seems that opponents of the war are simply being more honest. No doubt there are some Republicans who still believe that victory is likely, but the fact that articles like The Democrats' War are not harshly received (imagine the reaction if such an article had been written by a conservative right after the fall of Baghdad) suggests that many Republicans are ready to start spreading the blame for a failure of epic proportions.