Escalate

If I have been notably reticent about the state of the American intervention in the non-state of Iraq recently, then it's only because those who can be convinced at least of the necessary failure of the project and at best of its fundamental wrongness are already convinced, and the remaining morons will remain morons. Meanwhile, we must admit that it is now institutionally impossible for Washington to conclude its misadventure. Call it groupthink; call it sunk costs; call it folly. Regardless of the principle illness we attribute to the deciders and opiners, what's become evident and unavoidable is that American forces--30,000 more or 30,000 less--will remain in Iraq for this reason alone: Washington is ontologically incapable of acquiescing to any other eventuality. Thought in our capital occurs on a very narrow bandwith, and while it has some room for considerations of poor planning, poor execution, or even tragic error, it remains innately, inexorably incapable of concluding that the most basic premise underlying the Iraq War is fatally flawed. Washington does not, will not, and cannot admit that the United States has neither the moral right nor the practical wherewithal to influence the development of other societies, for good or ill, through the application of military force.

The question I struggle with is this: What is the proper response of the citizen. I plan, for instance, to attend the January antiwar march in Washington, if only as an observer. But I do not admit to the possibility that such a march can affect outcomes, because the sort of peace it demands is as inconceivable within the narrow spectrum of official thought as the possibility of a man flying by flapping his arms. The governing class can't conceive of an America that does not interfere in other nation's internal affairs. Every time you read an op-ed about American power and prestige, remember that it is at its base defending the premise that not only is America the world's sole "superpower," but that America possesses a unique right to that position--that America is not, in other words, a nation that is by historical accident and good fortune more powerful than other nations, but that it is an totally singular historical phenomenon. "The indispensible nation," as the saying goes.

Most of us can go on living in perfect peace and comfort in these waning years of empire. The United States as a world power will outlive us all. Any other doomsaying is just apocalpyic fantasy. Does that absolve us of responsibility to some degree or other? Or do we begin to consider that something other than marching and electioneering may be necessary and justifiable? Admitting that there is no practical constituency for such a thing, and operating with a healthy suspicion of revolutionary cant, the question remains: Now that all else has failed, what do we do?