STILL IN DENIAL: V. D. HANSON

Victor Davis Hanson is among the most learned
of Bush's defenders. His latest attack on Bush
critics appears in The National Review (12/14/07)
and is titled: "Conventionally Ignorant." The
problem with calling people who don't agree
with you "ignorant," is that it implies superior
knowledge. And Hanson has superior knowledge
in abundance when it comes to ancient battles.
(He's a retired professor of military history.)
How that makes him an expert on the contem-
porary Middle East over, say, Vali Nasr, is up to
you, dear reader, to discern. (Nasr was born in
Iran, speaks all the M. E. languages, spends a
lot of time there, and refutes, in his writings,
every point that Hanson raises.)

Hanson's thesis is that conventional wisdom
parroted by pundits and politicians is all wet.
To prove this, he brings up several "often
repeated statements," and then proceeds to
show how wrong they are. The first of these
erroneous statements that he wishes to correct,
is: "There is no military solution to Iraq." (Ital.
his). His refutation to this (often used by the
Bushies) is that there was a military solution
to WW II, resulting in prosperous democracies
in Germany and Japan, so there!

His argument commits the fallacy of irrelevance:
he is implying a non-existent similarity in the
two situations. When Japan surrendered, the
Emperor ordered his people to respect and obey
the American occupiers, which they did. I was
there. The Japanese had an existing government,
and a long tradition of respect for law and order.
They have little cultural diversity, and no signi-
ficant ethnic or sectarian divisions. Germany
was similar in many respects, plus it had a long
tradition of democratic government prior to
Hitler. It was eager and ready to get back to that.
We still have troops in both of those countries,
without anyone attacking them, and with the
permission of their governments.

In Iraq, 60% of the population think it's okay to
attack and kill Americans. 70% want us out of
there now. The "no military solution" opinion
comes not from our pundits, as V. D. H. claims,
but from every top general who has ever served
there, including Gen. Petraeus. And it is, of
course, absolutely true. What V. D. misses is
that it's a civil war in which we continue to arm
all sides. Why are we doing that? Ignorance,
perhaps? We don't know what else to do, and
won't quit? The most astonishing thing about
Hanson's piece is that he has written an article
about Iraq without mentioning once the most
salient fact of all: the bitter, violent struggle for
power between the Sunnis and the Shia! You
didn't have that in Japan and Germany, V. D.
Nor did we have the GWOT. He doesn't mention
that either. There has been no military solution
in five years of killing in Iraq, and no political
solution either. We can't be defeated militarily,
that's true. Nor can they be, at least at any cost
we are willing to bear. So it's an impasse that
can go on for years.

"We haven't tried regional diplomacy" is another
falsehood, according to Hanson. He calls it
"another red herring" (like "no mil. solution).
However, the key to regional diplomacy is
obviously and clearly a solution of the Israeli/
Palestinian conflict, which V. D. H. also neglects
to mention at all! On the possibilities and
difficulties of regional diplomacy in the M. E.,
google Vali Nasr and read any of his writings,
especially The Shia Revival. He covers all
bases there.

"We need to talk to Iran." This is another oft-
repeated statement that V. D. wants to debunk.
He writes: "We always have had some sort of
dialogue ongoing in a background capacity with
Iran." That is just flat false: unremitting hostility
and false accusations, along with oft-expressed
determination to bring about regime change is
hardly "dialogue." He wants us to believe that
all the problems between us have been caused
by Iran. Yeah, like our overthrow of their
democratically elected gov't. back in the 50's
when we installed the Shah? And our financial
and military support for Saddam, when he
attacked Iran without provocation? We need
to know the truth and tell the truth. That would
be a great start!

"We can't impose democracy on anyone." This is
supposed to be a canard, so he seeks to refute it
with a long list of democracies that finally came
about after years of violence and conflict. Does
that show that democracy was imposed? No, it
begs the question: you really can't impose
democracy. That's self-evidently true. People
won't have it until they want it, in which case it
isn't being imposed. Can democracy finally
emerge out of conflict? Of course!

"Iraq is the worst (fill in the blanks) in American
History." His answer to this is that it's not over
yet. In other words, we can't say the operation
was botched until the patient dies. As long as the
patient is breathing, he may live in spite of our
worst efforts! In that case, it's a success. Never
mind the costs and the long term consequences!