In an excellent essay, Paul Krugman posits in today's NY Times an explanatory dichotomy for proponents of a surge in Iraq. Either proponents are cruelly cynical, or frighteningly delusional:
Senator Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, thinks
they're cynical. He recently told The Washington Post that administration
officials are simply running out the clock, so that the next president will be
"the guy landing helicopters inside the Green Zone, taking people off the
roof.
And:
Daniel Kahneman, who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science for his
research on irrationality in decision-making, thinks they're delusional. Mr.
Kahneman and Jonathan Renshon recently argued in Foreign Policy magazine that
the administration's unwillingness to face reality in Iraq reflects a basic
human aversion to cutting one's losses - the same instinct that makes gamblers
stay at the table, hoping to break even.
Thus Krugman presents us with two perhaps equally unappealing options: either we are dealing with men (and woman) cruel enough to place political calculation above the lives of American servicepeople, or, alternately, we are being governed by the dangerously irrational.I would assert, however, that such a dichotomy cannot be posited; that in fact, it is false: the president himself, I believe, is utterly delusional, while his advisers, adept politicos, are utterly cynical, and well versed in Machiavellian political theory. A combination that is more dangerous than either proposed by Krugman. I will, however, give Krugman the final word:
Mr. Bush is expected to announce his plan for escalation in the next few days.
According to the BBC, the theme of his speech will be "sacrifice." But sacrifice
for what? Not for the national interest, which would be best served by
withdrawing before the strain of the war breaks our ground forces. No, Iraq has
become a quagmire of the vanities - a place where America is spending blood and
treasure to protect the egos of men who won't admit that they were wrong.
You can read the full story here.
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