Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Great (American) Expectations

Barack Obama shows why foreigners consider us naive.

By Bret Stephens
Tuesday, January 8, 2008 12:01 a.m.

Barack Obama, still fresh from his victory in Iowa last week and confident of another in New Hampshire tonight, has as his signature campaign theme the promise to "end the division" in America. Notice the irony: The scale of his Iowa victory, in a state that's 94% white, is perhaps the clearest indication so far that the division Mr. Obama promises to end has largely been put to rest.

Meanwhile, in Kenya last week a mob surrounded a church in which, according to an Associated Press report, "hundreds of terrified people had taken refuge." The church was put to flame, while the mob used machetes, Hutu-style, to hack to death whoever tried to escape. The killers in this case were of the Luo tribe, their victims were of the Kikuyu, and the issue over which they are bleeding is their own presidential election.

When foreigners assail Americans for being naive, it is often on account of contrasts like these. A nation in which the poor are defined by an income level that in most countries would make them prosperous is a nation that has all but forgotten the true meaning of poverty. A nation in which obesity is largely a problem of the poor (and anorexia of the upper-middle class) does not understand the word "hunger." A nation in which the most celebrated recent cases of racism, at Duke University or in Jena, La., are wholly or mostly contrived is not a racist nation. A nation in which our "division" is defined by the vitriol of Ann Coulter or James Carville is not a truly divided one--at least while Mr. Carville is married to Republican operative Mary Matalin and Ms. Coulter is romantically linked with New York City Democrat Andrew Stein.


At the Democratic debate Saturday night in New Hampshire, the contenders were asked what they made of the success so far of the surge in Iraq. All well and good, was the consensus reply, but what about national reconciliation among the various Iraqi factions, without which (so the thinking goes) it will all amount to a castle of sand?

That's a respectable argument. But the concept of "reconciliation," defined by the Bush administration's misconceived benchmarks of last year and by the unreal expectations so many Americans have for it, is not something Iraqis are likely to achieve in our lifetimes. It may well be that a majority Shiite government that does not massacre the very Sunnis who until 2003 had been their constant oppressors for 80 years is as much "reconciliation" as anyone has a reasonable right to expect. It may well be, too, that a Kurdistan that remains loosely affiliated with an Iraqi state despite an ancient claim to independent nationhood--by some measures exceeding that of the Jews--is an achievement unto itself.

There's more. The problem with Iraq today is that it is a net importer of terrorism and instability. Yet when the U.S. invaded, it was a net exporter of both. An improvement? On balance, probably yes. Since Iraq regained its sovereignty in 2004, it has had two presidents and three prime ministers. This is too much in the Italian mold of government. Yet who, outside of the CIA, wants to return to the strongman model?

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is chided for not moving legislation quickly enough through Parliament. But the very essence of a real parliament, as opposed to a rubber stamp, is gridlock. Have Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, with nothing worse to overcome than their Republican opposition, done better in their first year in the majority than Mr. Maliki, who must run a government besieged by al Qaeda and Iranian-backed militias?

From The Wall Street Journal's offices in New York City, one can look down at Ground Zero, still mostly a huge pit after more than six years during which its reconstruction, now in its umpteenth design iteration, was supposed to have been the signal proof that Americans would rebuild--better, taller, prouder.

Also across the way is the hulk of the old Deutsche Bank building, critically damaged on 9/11 and slated for destruction. In an attempt to ensure that not even trace levels of asbestos and other unpalatable elements would escape the wreck, a meticulous plan was devised to dismantle the building floor by floor, at a price exceeding that of its construction. In August a fire broke out, and two firefighters died after getting lost in the maze of internal scaffolding erected to keep the asbestos in. Those brave men lost their lives for the sake of an EPA standard, and there's been no work to speak of on the building since. It's a case of the perfect becoming the enemy--the mortal enemy--of the good.


There is great virtue in the American way, which expects CEOs to perform on a quarterly basis, presidents and Congresses to reinvent politics in 100 days, generals to wipe out opponents in 100 hours without taking significant casualties, doctors to save life and limb every time, search engines to yield a million results in less than a second, and so on. There is also great virtue in the belief that what is bad can be made good, and that what is good can be made great, and that what is fractionally less than great is downright awful.

But these virtues can spawn vices. One is impatience. Another is a culture of chronic complaint. A third is the belief that every problem has a solution, that trial is possible without error, that risks must always be zero, that every inconvenience is an outrage, every setback a disaster and every mishap a plausible basis for a lawsuit.

It is often said that the Bush administration's effort to bring democracy to the Middle East wasn't so much a case of American idealism as it was of hubris. That may yet prove true. But is it any less hubristic to think the enterprise was ever going to be brought off without blundering time and again? It's a thought that ought to weigh especially heavily on Mr. Obama, dream candidate of America's great expectations.

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