So we've all seen the poll numbers. Why is there so much opposition to the war in Iraq?
This kind of thing is something with which conservatives have grappled before. One of the founding senior editors of National Review magazine, James Burnham, used to periodically remind his readers that, after all, most ordinary Americans didn't care much about politics and foreign affairs and such. And conservatives have always believed that, in any case, "the people" are not always right. They have passions, they have prejudices, they're not always patient.
I think this is what Victor Davis Hanson was getting at a couple of months ago when, writing about the Iraq and the war on terror, he wrote: But such a legitimate and necessary rationale depends also upon general empathy for the Middle East. We are embarking on this new course in the hopes that the American lives sacrificed and our treasure spent are for a friendly people that appreciates our efforts. I think they do, and that the record of brave Iraqi reformers is worth the effort — both for the sake of our future security and so as to adopt a new moral posture that respects Arab self-determination.
But, again, most Americans now don’t think it is worth it — and not just because of the cost we pay, but because of what we get in return. Turn on the television and the reporting is all hate: a Middle Eastern Muslim is blowing up someone in Israel, shooting a rocket from Gaza, chanting death to America in Beirut, stoning an adulterer in Tehran, losing a hand for thievery in Saudi Arabia, threatening to take back Spain, gassing someone in Iraq, or promising to wipe out Israel. An unhinged, secular Khadafi rants; a decrepit Saudi royal lectures; a wild-eyed Lebanese cleric threatens — whatever the country, whatever the political ideology, the American television viewer draws the same conclusion: we are always blamed for their own self-inflicted misery.
