Long Wars & Revisionism

Cold War scholar Thomas Maddux just counted 396 books at Amazon studying President Truman, in Maddux’s intro to a roundtable on the latest about Truman’s “almost day by day” coping with being thrust into fateful decisions about which he knew little to begin with, “as doubts and debate swirled around him.”

Sixty-two years after the end of World War II, even as now open archives provide insights formerly unavailable, many scholars still disagree on the extent to which a traditional view is correct that the U.S. haltingly -- sometimes or often stumbling through the dark of partial information -- learned to respond to Stalin’s post-war ambitions.

A few others, largely discredited except among fellow extremists although potent in academia, attempted to revise history to contend that anything wrong in the world always bears the U.S. stamp, was the result of U.S. ambitions and plans to run the world, and virtually ignore the overwhelming evidence of the learning curve or of Soviet culpability.

In short, the learning curve continues decades after their occurrence, about events and thoughts largely documented, from both sides of the Cold War.

But, at least, no one denies there was a Cold War, a new global war, which stretched through ups and downs for over 40-years after World War II, and almost all recognize that U.S. policies were largely, and usually reluctantly, reactive.

Although Muslim extremist states and Islamist groups have been increasingly attacking the U.S. and Europe for a quarter-century, and we’ve learned much, there still isn’t much of a consensus that we’re even in another long war, not to mention what it’s about.

On this anniversary of 9/11, a telling, bestirring, fateful, but intermediate step in this escalating attack on the West, two seasoned scholars of history and of Islam put forth reflections that must be read to gain footing on where we are.

Norman Podhoretz, who coined calling our current global challenge World War IV, reflects on his own awakening in the 1960’s from facile Leftist illusions to recognize that many of its perpetrators were actively at war against the West, which is why he wasn’t so optimistic that the surge in patriotic talk from the Left after 9/11 would last long.

As a veteran of the political and cultural wars of the '60s, I knew from my own scars that no matter how small and insignificant a group the anti-Americans of the left might for the moment look to the naked eye, they had it in them to rise and grow again….

For a short spell, the spectacular success of that campaign dampened the nascent antiwar activity on at least a number of campuses. But I felt certain that, as other fronts were opened--with Iraq most likely being the next--opposition not only would grow but would become more and more extreme.

I turned out to be right about this, and yet even I never imagined that the new antiwar movement would so rapidly arrive at the stage of virulence it had taken years for its ancestors of the Vietnam era to reach. Nor did I anticipate how closely the antiwar playbook of that era would be followed and how successfully it would be applied to Iraq, even though the two wars had nothing whatever in common.

To be sure, this time, mainly because there was no draft, there would be no student protesters and no massive street demonstrations. Instead, virtual demonstrations would be mounted in cyberspace by the so-called netroots and these, more suited to the nature of the new technological age, would prove an all-too-effective substitute.

Podhoretz ends on the optimistic note that characterizes honest men of ideas, that truth will prevail over the Vietnam syndrome fixations of the Left.

Well acquainted though I am with its malignant power, I still believe that it will ultimately be overcome by the forces opposed to it in the war at home. Even so, I cannot deny that this question still hangs ominously in the air and will not be answered before more damage is done to the long struggle against Islamofascism into which we were blasted six years ago and that I persist in calling World War IV.

Podhoretz is certainly correct about the persistent virulence of the “America the Ugly” meme and its adherents. They have added to our confusion and division, and both directly and indirectly distracted our leaders and restrained our resolve.

Nonetheless, the purposefulness of President Bush has not been weakened, and he has been in full command – for better and worse – of the mission, resources committed, and operations conducted. The anti-war Left didn’t get us into the perplexities we are now. It’s mostly the failures and frustrations we’ve faced, many self-created.

That so often Bush did not foresee the determination and machinations of our new enemies can be understood. That the U.S. was inadequately prepared for a new long war’s escalation can also be understood in light of his and his predecessors’ lack of foresight to build the forces we need, military and civilian. That no responsible leader can afford to bug out, regardless of how we got to here, is indisputable by all except extremists at the Left of the Democratic Party. And, most honest observers, here and abroad, see much cause for optimism if we do persist.

Still, however, in our understandable focus upon Iraq, the bigger issue of what future we’re to face remains murky. Middle East scholar Dan Pipes provides a succinct and responsible, even optimistic, analysis, that although our learning curve is slow and steep we’re moving forward in our understanding, and ultimate cohesion.

[A]n atmosphere of gloom predominates….This negativism reflects twin realities: Islamism (outside Iran) is waxing everywhere, while the civilized world is making profound mistakes — blaming itself for Muslim hatred, underestimating and appeasing the enemy….

But there is also good news in the war, and it concerns the deepening education and spreading awareness of growing numbers of Westerners, especially on the right, about the nature of the war and the enemy. Americans are reading books, watching documentaries, keeping up with the news, and getting actively involved….

More broadly, the ongoing and intense public debate about Islam has created a far more informed citizenry. Few Americans before September 11 knew such terms as jihad and fatwa, much less ijtihad, dhimmitude, or burqa….

The outcome of the "war on terror," I submit, will have less to do with breakthroughs in avionics or intelligence coups than with the degree to which civilized people understand the nature of their enemy and join together to fight it. That means liberals remembering, as Canada's Salim Mansur put it, that "Liberal democracy is no less an armed ideology than [is] Islamist ideology." What does the future hold: 2001's slogan of "United We Stand" or more of today's deep fracturing?

The answer may well be decisive. The historical record gives me some reason for optimism, as until now the Western democracies have prevailed. For that to happen again, learning about Islam and Muslims will be part of the requisite preparation.

That doesn’t take nor require fanatic or hateful attitudes or responses by ourselves, but does require the steady resolution to persevere. Polls show that most Americans criticize our past failures, as well they should, while most Americans recognize the dimensions of the threats and the consequences of trying to ignore or hide from the challenges.

We can expect the Left’s virulence to continue. These self-important defeatists and enemies of Western civilization will be relegated to the sidelines and discredited by our moving forward with steady resolve. They, and our foreign enemies, will only be encouraged to further mortal excess by irresolution from our leaders.

Long wars are not neatly charted nor run a smooth course, because that’s the way history works. Revisionism, on the other hand, is contra-history, and must fall of its own lack of foundation in reality.