I would have thought that discussion of a dispute between different conservatives would be a topic which David Brooks would have handled well. While, like most liberal bloggers, I generally disagree with his columns, I don’t share the knee jerk hatred of him seen by some bloggers, and from time to time have found areas of agreement. In this case I find that where I expected some wise observations from Brooks the column degenerated to absurdity. Here is how Brooks summarizes the differences between conservative camps:

In one chamber there are the resurgent Burkeans. These conservatives, led by George F. Will, are suspicious of grand plans to transform regions. They know that societies are infinitely complex organisms, that our ability to understand reality is limited and that efforts to initiate change can produce unintended consequences.

In another chamber are the staunch Churchillians. They know that occasionally civilization is confronted by enemies so ideologically extreme and so greedy for domination that decent nations must use military power to confront and defeat them. So Bill Kristol argues the U.S. has no choice but to strike the Iranian nuclear infrastructure.

I side with George Will in this dispute, but Brooks takes a middle course which he believes is led by George Bush and Condoleezza Rice. He concludes with:

In short, the administration approach embodies a few principles we neoincrementalists hold dear. First, you create policies in accord with your basic values while fully understanding the downside risks — the downside risk in this case being that terrorists may have developed methods that make it nearly impossible for superior military forces to uproot them given the global media environment.

Second, you go to war with the world you have. Right now unilateral actions are politically unsustainable, so everything has to be done through a coalition. And third, statecraft is soulcraft. If you can create circumstances in which democrats win, you can change perceptions and create the momentum for future victories — incrementally.

There are errors in all three of his points when he describes them as principles supported by the Bush Administration. Note following the first principle was one of Bush’s major errors in Iraq as he ignored the risks and believed those who claimed we would be greeted as liberators. Even if, for the sake of discussion, you accept the idea of war against Iraq, going alone rather than achieving international support and building a true coalition was a major error in Bush’s strategy. Finally, Brooks is in error if he believes the rhetoric that Bush’s actions promote democracy. Promotion of democracy was a fall back argument used to justify the war when Bush’s claims of WMD and terrorist ties were disproven. While promoting democracy is an admirable goal, Bush’s actions do the opposite. As I’ve noted in several other posts (and George Soros discusses at length in his latest book) Bush’s actions have undermined democracy movements in authoritarian countries around the world and Bush’s legacy will likely be an increased number of people worldwide who live under tyranny rather than freedom.

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