Obligatory 9/11 Retrospective and Assessment

Today is the fifth anniversary of the Day That Changed Everything. And the more things change, the more they stay the same.

First, we recall that the events of September 11, 2001 left our SWNIDish self with a sense that we might be called upon to endure great hardships or to make great sacrifices in the future. We began stockpiling enough water to keep our family hydrated for three days in an emergency. In early winter of that year, we took seriously the idea that an acquaintance's fever accompanied by skin lesions might be terrorist-inflicted smallpox (so did the acquaintance's doctor). Viewing the magisterial Fellowship of the Ring, we wondered whether ourself and our children would be part of an epic struggle for the future of humanity, like that of Frodo and his companions.

That change has now reverted to the state of sameness. Our stockpiled water remains untended in the basement and would probably give us dysentery if we drank it. No one these days thinks much about a smallpox epidemic started by terrorists. By the third Lord of the Rings film, the immediate poignancy of the struggle had faded to the commonplace. We complained that some of the special effects were unconvincing in the last film.

Second, we recall that the events of September 11 left Americans with a profound sense that their Americanness needed to be asserted decisively. Because we were in the process of moving houses that very week, we spent a lot of time that week in hardware stores. Most people in checkout lines with us were buying American flags in various sizes and materials.

But more than flags were in the offing. Americans wanted their military power projected abroad to counter the terrorist actions. In Afghanistan we discovered the Northern Alliance, then on the brink of dissolution. American special forces troops joined them, advised them, and pointed their laser weapons-targeting devices at their enemies, the Taliban. The consequence was that a few American soldiers and pilots turned the military tide quickly to defeat the most obvious object of American wrath for the 9/11 attacks.

That impressive military triumph was followed by another in Iraq. Facing down predictions of tens of thousands of American casualties in the battle to remove Saddam Hussein, the American military, without the advantage of line of attack through "ally" Turkey to the north, cruised into Baghdad in a matter of days with minimal casualties.

It seemed a new day of American beneficent military hegemony. Our guys could do anything. The Vietnam era was over. American know-how would spread the blessings of democracy to any erstwhile enemy, instantly converted to a friend, with dramatic, 24-hour coverage by embedded reporters with the cable networks.

But now there is the resurgent sameness. Iraq was an easy invasion but is a tough occupation. Afghanistan hasn't been a picnic either, and it's only those trying to use the war as a political wedge to squeeze themselves back into power who will insist that Afghanistan would be paradise if only we had stayed out of Iraq. Moreover, the idealistic objective of these military actions--the establishment of democracy in the Middle East--has proved most difficult in both countries.

And so now the sameness has settled in. Refusing to believe that what is right and necessary is not always easy, we carp that the war was mismanaged, that the right way to handle things was obvious, that Bush must have lied about the whole thing. We imagine that a world with Saddam and his sons in power for another 30 years is safer than one without him, or one in which an incarcerated Osama would mean the end of all terrorism. We picture the natural state of the Middle East as pacific Arabs sitting under palm trees sipping tea and munching dates instead of a region rich on oil and rife with hostilities toward the West and toward each other.

We forget that the world has always been a dangerous place, that the sense of invulnerability enjoyed before 9/11 by North Americans is exceptional. We forget that the conflict between the cultures of Europe, shaped imperfectly by Christianity, and the Arab world, shaped violently by Islam, has been a feature of life for the last millennium, recently dampened by the West's greater prosperity and technology but more recently revived by Islamic oil wealth.

And so where does this sameness put us? We'll offer a few observations.

First, let's stop talking about a war on terrorism. It's a war on Islamo-Fascism, whether from Osama, the Taliban, Saudi Wahabbists, Iranian Shiite radicals or quasi-secular Sunni Baathists. Given to nuance, we hesitate to paint with a broad brush. However, the situation at this point seems undeniable. All these groups are bent on the assertion of their own power at the expense of others' well being. Thoughtful leaders of the West (attention French: this excludes you) may suggest varying responses to each. But none is a friend to the values of liberty.

Second, let's be realistic about Iraq. "Nation building" is an art that no one has perfected. Bush and the neocons may have underestimated the difficulty of establishing democracy there. But the President's rhetoric has constantly stressed that this task is part of a long, twilight struggle for the freedom of America and other peoples of the world. We can learn a lot from our friends the Brits, who have fought a dirty war against terrorists in Northern Ireland for a couple of generations and only recently have something to show for it.

As to whether we had a legitimate justification for going to war in Iraq, it's worth remembering where we were before the war. Saddam played a deliberate game of deception to project power in his own country and regionally. With every means of "coming clean" about WMD, he deliberately played the game to appear to be concealing weapons while at the same time claiming that he was abiding by UN sanctions. He was, in other words, like a man who walks into a bank with his hand in his coat pocket, not exactly saying he has a gun there but demanding money from the teller with a threatening gesture. To change comparisons, we called his bluff. That he had nothing in his hand doesn't change the reality that he never folded.

Third, let's be realistic about all actions taken or likely to be taken in this struggle. Despite all the great minds working on problems of international relations, no solution is without its concomitant downside. So-called experts who proclaim that more troops or fewer troops or better intelligence or no action at all would have produced a better outcome have all the advantages of second guessing someone who is actually charged with making a timely decision. Hindsight, as they say ...

In particular, we challenge the notion that things would be better if Saddam were still in power. By this time, the sanctions regime would be beyond the point of sustainability. Pressure to allow Iraq full access to world markets with its oil would be unbearable. We would be back to business as usual, the situation that in 1990 led to the invasion of Kuwait, only now Saddam could expect support from a broader coalition of Islamist bedfellows in whatever mischief he cooked up. If he sent his armies north against the Kurds, would there have been the will and means to stop him, as we didn't in 1991 when he marched against the Shiites?

In other words, those who consider the Iraq war a gamble should consider that doing nothing is also a gamble. We are in the game, whether we raise, call or fold.

Fourth, we think that the future of Iraq and other Middle Eastern nations depends in large part on whether strong leadership arises in those countries. India's independence half a century ago, messy as it was, was accomplished only with heroic indigenous leadership of the kind that gets celebrated in big Hollywood movies a generation later. To no surprise, Charles Krauthammer got this exactly right last week.

So where will we be in another five years? Probably in much the same situation we are in now. The world will be a mess. The United States will be trying to make it better. We may be witnessing the rise of great statesmen in the Middle East or decrying their absence. Those out of power will blame those in power for the mess. But to the degree that Islamo-Fascism has been contained and democracy has been enlarged, some people's lives will be better than they would have been otherwise.