Washington Post: Irak och den konservativa kuppen

E. J. Dionne Jr. har skrivit en intressant artikel i dagens Washington Post med titeln: Iraq and the Conservative Coup.Nothing succeeds like success and nothing fails like failure.

Dionne är senior fellow vid den liberala Brookings Institution i Washington D.C. Brookings är en av de få motvikterna till dagens högerpolitik i USA. Inkommande demokratiska administrationer brukar hämta specialister från Brookings.

Dionne skriver att
:
In politics, ... if a leader is seen as doing well, his side in the debate holds together and suppresses disagreements that are quite real but don't seem worth pursuing if they get in the way of winning.

It also means that if a leader is perceived as doing badly, those quite real disagreements are seen as much more important. Parts of the leader's political coalition try to disengage themselves from the perceived failure and differentiate themselves from those whom they see as incompetent and thus representing something other than the true faith.

The beginnings of a conservative crackup under this President Bush flow directly from the perceived failures of his policies in Iraq.

And that means that solidarity -- a characteristic of the conservative movement for the past three decades ... is fraying. Lacking unity, conservatism is expressing its variety.



Dionne beskriver sedan de olika konservativa grupperingarna, och hur de har börjat kritisera Bush.

There are, first, the traditionalist conservatives, the most authentic of the breed. They are skeptical of large projects undertaken by government to improve humanity because they don't fully trust either government or humanity. ...

It is this view that has made the columns of George Will, my conservative colleague, so powerful over the past few months....

But the neoconservatives who deeply believe in the purposes of this war are not happy either.... . Why, they ask, were more troops not sent to Iraq ... ? Why has there been such a reluctance to smash opposition to the American venture in Iraq, to "give victory a chance," as William Kristol wrote recently in the Weekly Standard?

The isolationist conservatives around Pat Buchanan cannot understand why we went to war in the first place -- and they opposed it from the beginning.


Dione beskriver hur Bush som hittils har styrt det republikanska partiet med järnhand nu måste tolerera att olika åsikter gör sig hörda:


With the splits on Iraq exposed, other splits within conservatism become more obvious. Small-government conservatives feel ever more free to speak out against the large budget deficits over which Bush has presided. Anti-immigration conservatives speak out against the president's immigration policies. Pro-military conservatives criticize Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's dominion over the Pentagon, reflecting the views of many in the military brass who never much liked Rumsfeld or his plans.

Om det nu bara fanns en demokratisk motståndade som var intresserad av att presentera ett alternativ till Bush så skulle världen kunna se helt annorlunda ut efter valet i november. Tyvärr så finns det ingen sådan kandidat, det finns bara John Kerry, som tyvärr, det är fler och fler nu övertygade om, kommer att förlora mot Bush. Det är tragiskt.