David Brooks, Or Self-Deception Writ Large

The New York Times's David Brooks is onto something. Get this; he actually thinks things in Iraq might not turn-out as the neo-cons had predicted. Who would've thought?

One of the interesting things about Brooks's attempt to come to terms with what others refer to as "REALITY" is the apparent insignificance of the torture scandal for the success or failure of the Iraq campaign. People at the Pentagon, of course, speak of those "six morons who lost the war." Yet, Brooks's only reference to the torture of Iraqi POW's is one that minimizes it (e.g. "America's midcentury leaders...[had] seen Americans commit wartime atrocities that surpass those at Abu Ghraib"). This, of course, compliments an explanation of "what went wrong" that leaves only a few people noone guilty of any moral wrong-doing, whatsoever.

...it's not too early to begin thinking about what was clearly an intellectual failure. There was, above all, a failure to understand the consequences of our power. There was a failure to anticipate the response our power would have on the people we sought to liberate. They resent us for our power and at the same time expect us to be capable of everything. There was a failure to understand the effect our power would have on other people around the world. We were so sure we were using our might for noble purposes, we assumed that sooner or later, everybody else would see that as well. Far from being blinded by greed, we were blinded by idealism.

Notice that Mr. Brooks doesn't say we were mistaken about our "noble purposes". Rather, the real problem, it seems, is that the Iraqis haven't yet come to understand that, from the torture chambers to the mass civilian casualties, we really do have their best interests in mind.

True, Brooks does wax poetic for a moment and bemoan the sheer tragedy that occasions our military might:

We went into Iraq with what, in retrospect, seems like a childish fantasy. We were going to topple Saddam, establish democracy and hand the country back to grateful Iraqis. We expected to be universally admired when it was all over. We didn't understand the tragic irony that our power is also our weakness. As long as we seemed so mighty, others, even those we were aiming to assist, were bound to revolt. They would do so for their own self-respect. In taking out Saddam, we robbed the Iraqis of the honor of liberating themselves.

Ultimately, what Brooks is offering is a moral cover-up of mass proportions. Some weeks ago we heard that the President couldn't think of any mistakes made during his presidency. Now, we're hearing that, if the Administration actually has made any mistakes in Iraq, it's clearly "an intellectual failure."  

One of the reasons why the torture scandal is so damaging to the neo-cons' efforts is that, from the outset, they claimed the moral high-ground. Now that we've shown the world we can be as inhumane as Saddam's men, our alleged moral rectitude is being exposed for the hypocrisy it always was. The true believers in the war shutter to think that our leaders' motives might be impure. So David Brooks assures them that, ultimately, it is we, the mighty and righteous, who are the victims; victims of our own idealism.