IN THE turbulent wake of the Iraq invasion, America's left-leaning squawk boxes have been hemming and hawing exuberantly over the failures -- real and imagined -- of the Bush administration's flashy foreign policy adventures in the Middle East. Both sides of this debate are now firmly convinced that their political opponents are deeply mired in confusion and ignorance, and on this single point they are both happily correct. Conservatives seem to have just plain forgotten the original justification of military action in Iraq as a security measure to protect the United States against terrorism, while liberals are so consumed by their unthinkingly visceral hatred for President Bush that they couldn't recognize a cogent argument if one smacked them in the face.
The discussion surrounding this issue is a sprawling mess for precisely the same reason that all of American politics is a sprawling mess -- because both parties are floating adrift in a vast ideological wasteland, devoid of any clear or coherent conception of the proper function of government in society. Instead of embodying principled political philosophies, today's party platforms are disjointed amalgamations of expedient and emotional stances on a long grocery list of faddish topics. In the arena of practical politics, there is much need for resurgence among those who believe in the power of ideas to shape the world for the better.
Critics of the President in particular have much to gain in the Iraq debate by replacing their vulgar ad hominem political strategy with a closer study of the ideology that underlies American politics. Were they to do so, they would uncover a powerful arsenal of argument that would not only provide powerful criticism of the Bush administration's foreign policy, but would do so on terms that conservatives must respect.
Conservatism, in its traditional Jeffersonian form, incorporated two key tenets that are still held dear by many conservatives today, and which could be readily brought to bear in condemning Bush's increasingly interventionist foreign agenda. The first of these is the broad principle that the American government exists to serve the American people, not the rest of the world. On this view, our tax dollars should be spent to secure our rights and liberties within a just and prosperous republic, not to launch crusades like a modern-day Prometheus trying to bring liberty and democracy to the dark corners of the globe. Jefferson himself eloquently admonished us that by entangling ourselves in other nations' affairs through extensive foreign political intervention, we would inevitably cause more harm than good, both to ourselves and to those with whom we interfere.
Additionally, many conservatives today at least claim to retain our nation's core founding principle that governmental power should be both strictly limited and decentralized. If taken seriously, this principle calls for pacifism much more loudly than any Michael Moore film. Historically, war has been the single greatest force driving the expansion and consolidation of government power over the lives of individuals. Nothing else even comes close. The massive expenditure of national resources in wartime necessitates huge increases both in government infrastructure and tax revenue. Despite government assurances that such expansions are temporary measures instituted in times of crisis, they inevitably result in the permanent swelling of the size of the government, either by maintaining large military forces or transferring excess tax revenue to domestic programs after war-time expenditures cease.
At its heart, the war in Iraq is a war of international idealism and big government. With weapons of mass destruction having moved out of the spotlight, President Bush now sounds like he's channeling the spirit of Woodrow Wilson, asserting the American government's obligation to bring social justice to the world by forcefully spreading the ideals of liberty, democracy and the equal treatment of women. Further, the extensive debt that the war effort is incurring promises to swell the size of the federal government and keep tax rates elevated for years to come. This fattened tax tolerance will surely pave the way for a slew of grossly expensive domestic programs to quietly creep in under the public radar long after the war debt has been paid off.
So if liberals truly believe in employing extensive government programs to address serious problems both foreign and domestic, they might just have as much reason to support this crazy war as conservatives have to oppose it. To combine the oft-spoken sentiments of President Bush and our own esteemed professor Larry J. Sabato: God bless American politics.
Anthony Dick is a Cavalier Daily columnist. He can be reached at adick@cavalierdaily.com.
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