Pessimistic liberalism

With the Pentagon declaring the end of "major combat" in Iraq, most Americans are responding with relief and pride. Our troops have performed with skill, courage and even honorable restraint in deposing a dictator half a world away in less than a month. The puzzle is why some Americans, especially media and liberal elites, continue to wallow in pessimism about this liberation.

Two weeks ago these elites were predicting a long war with horrific casualties and global damage. Then at the sight of Iraqis cheering U.S. troops in Baghdad, they quickly moved on to fret about "looting" and "anarchy." Now that those are subsiding, our pessimists have rushed to worry that Iraqi democracy and reconstruction will be all but impossible. What is it that liberals find so dismaying about the prospect of American success? In discounting these gloomy new predictions, it helps to consider their track record. Among the anticipated disasters that haven't come true: a "nationalist" uprising against U.S. troops, à la Vietnam; the "Arab street" enraged against us; tens of thousands of civilian casualties and a refugee and humanitarian crisis; bloody house-to-house urban combat; Iraq's oil fields aflame, lifting oil prices and sending the economy into recession; North Korea ("the greater threat") using the war as an excuse to attack; the Turks intervening in northern Iraq and at war with the Kurds; and all of course leading to world-wide mayhem.

We could attach famous names or institutions to all of these positions, but (space limitations aside) our question today is less who than why? America's liberals weren't always so dour about their country's purposes. As recently as the 1960s, their favorite son (JFK) offered to "bear any burden" to extend the promise of freedom. Why are they so afraid of freedom's expansion now? One answer is simple partisanship. The Iraq war would never have happened without President Bush's determination, and many liberals can't bear to admit he was right all along. The American left has developed a special antipathy for Mr. Bush, more than for any President since Nixon. Experts in moral ambiguity, they especially detest his certitude, which is rooted in religious faith. Perhaps they have come to loathe him so much that they can't even bring themselves to relish this broader American triumph.

Another answer is the continuing legacy of Vietnam. That failure remains the defining event in the lives of the men and women who now run most of our idea-forming institutions and media. Vietnam has made them forever suspicious of the use of force on behalf of American national interest.

They shelved those doubts for a time under Bill Clinton, albeit only when the cause wasn't "tainted" by national interest (Haiti, Kosovo) or when it was constrained by the "international community" (the U.N.). But they simply don't trust that, left to their own devices, the American government and military will act in a moral way that leaves the world better off.

Our former editor Robert Bartley offered a third, and more philosophical, explanation in his column on Monday. Citing Thomas Sowell, he noted that today's left has become a self-insulated elite convinced of its own virtue. In this view, these members of "the anointed" operate in an echo chamber that listens to and rewards one another to the point that they refuse to admit contrary evidence. If you repeat often enough that Iraqis couldn't possibly welcome Americans as "liberators," you can't process those TV images in Baghdad. Instead of freedom, you see only "anarchy" and American troops that somehow "allowed" looting.

We aren't saying that all liberals have succumbed to this pessimism about American purpose. Many have seen Iraq's evil squarely for what it is and have supported the Bush Administration's attempts to remove it. They include the Washington Post editorial page, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, Democrats Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephardt, such writers as Christopher Hitchens and Bill Keller, and above all Tony Blair.

But the majority of the American left, and especially its leading media voices, remain flummoxed if not embarrassed by America's Iraq victory. These include most Democrats in Congress, the editors (though not all reporters) of the New York Times and its acolytes at CNN and the major networks, and of course most academic experts. They can barely bring themselves to celebrate the downfall of a tyrant before predicting the awful challenges to come.

They now find themselves in league with those on the pessimistic and isolationist right who also opposed this war. The difference is that Pat Buchanan and his allies think the U.S. is too good for the world and will be corrupted by it. The liberal pessimists think the U.S. isn't good enough.

We don't write this in any spirit of gloating, because in fact this union of American left and far right may pose a long-term problem for liberated Iraq. Nation-building will require both patience and political consensus to succeed. Looking for vindication, these voices may too quickly look for reasons to call every mistake or difficulty a disaster - and demand a U.S. retreat. As optimists ourselves, we'll hold out hope that the sight of free Iraqis will cause at least some of them to revive their faith in American principles.

-- The Wall Street Journal