Jul 26, 2004
When Will David Brooks Wake Up?
David Brooks is a historian and I hate to trash him but in his latest column he reaches this conclusion after having read the 9-11 report:
"We're not in the middle of a war on terror, they note. We're not facing an axis of evil. Instead, we are in the midst of an ideological conflict."
He then adds:
"It seems like a small distinction - emphasizing ideology instead of terror - but it makes all the difference, because if you don't define your problem correctly, you can't contemplate a strategy for victory."
Sounds reasonable, you say. Indeed it does. And that's the problem. It is just the kind of reasonable observation he should have been making all along. He shouldn't have needed the 9-11 report to tell him this.
He was wrong about Iraq--and finally admitted it recently. Now he is saying he was wrong about the war on terrorism, too.
It was President Bush who nonsensically declared war on terrorism. It was he, our putative educator-in-chief, who miseducated the public about the nature of the enemy we face.
Both liberal and conservative intellectuals have been finding fault with the way Bush has framed the issue. I can remember a column by David Corn in the Nation several years ago pointing out that you can't declare war against a tactic. I also remember a column by Daniel Pipes, also published years ago, which concluded the enemy is radical Islamism and we need to face that.
Bush's war has been sabotaged from the start by his misguided approach. It's what happens when you put a C student into a job requiring the brains and intellectual curiosity of an A student--or at least someone who displays the intellectual breadth of an A student.
Brooks will still pull the lever for Bush in November, I suspect. But why? Bush has fumbled the two leading foreign policy challenges of his presidency (9-11 and Iraq). Is anything more important than getting foreign policy right in an era like ours?
If there is perhaps David Brooks can enlighten us. Me, I can't fathom what that might be.
"We're not in the middle of a war on terror, they note. We're not facing an axis of evil. Instead, we are in the midst of an ideological conflict."
He then adds:
"It seems like a small distinction - emphasizing ideology instead of terror - but it makes all the difference, because if you don't define your problem correctly, you can't contemplate a strategy for victory."
Sounds reasonable, you say. Indeed it does. And that's the problem. It is just the kind of reasonable observation he should have been making all along. He shouldn't have needed the 9-11 report to tell him this.
He was wrong about Iraq--and finally admitted it recently. Now he is saying he was wrong about the war on terrorism, too.
It was President Bush who nonsensically declared war on terrorism. It was he, our putative educator-in-chief, who miseducated the public about the nature of the enemy we face.
Both liberal and conservative intellectuals have been finding fault with the way Bush has framed the issue. I can remember a column by David Corn in the Nation several years ago pointing out that you can't declare war against a tactic. I also remember a column by Daniel Pipes, also published years ago, which concluded the enemy is radical Islamism and we need to face that.
Bush's war has been sabotaged from the start by his misguided approach. It's what happens when you put a C student into a job requiring the brains and intellectual curiosity of an A student--or at least someone who displays the intellectual breadth of an A student.
Brooks will still pull the lever for Bush in November, I suspect. But why? Bush has fumbled the two leading foreign policy challenges of his presidency (9-11 and Iraq). Is anything more important than getting foreign policy right in an era like ours?
If there is perhaps David Brooks can enlighten us. Me, I can't fathom what that might be.