Finding a Scapegoat, or Scape-elephant

Comments to this earlier post about refugees have gotten me thinking about the Iraq endgame. Most of the discussion to date has been about how and when we should remove troops, whether we should use benchmarks or timetables, and how far down we should adjust our definitions of "victory." That's the responsible discussion. But it ignores--or at least brackets--a key problem, which is that the Bush administration has absolutely no interest in these questions. Zero. While the rest of the country (and world) is debating the situation on the ground in Iraq, the Bushies have focused obsessively on the situation on the ground in the U.S. Namely, how do we find a scapegoat for this clusterfuck?

In other words, they believe that, politically, it's more important to control the American political narrative than it is to actually produce policy successes. Who says George W. didn't learn any lessons from Vietnam? Who says these guys don't think long-term? We need someone to blame. Abizaid? Casey? Rummy? The Iraqis, who refused to "stand up"? The liberal media (you know, the ones who hyped this war relentlessly for two-plus years before wussing out)? The Democrats in Congress, who demoralized the troops by debating the "surge"? The next president? Hell, they've even blamed the American people, on the grounds that we weren't tough enough to follow our burning Bush into the promised land. Just don't blame Bush, Cheney, or "conservatism."

Dems have noticed this, of course. But that's not the same thing as taking this meme seriously. How can we? It seems so farsical. Well, we better get serious about this, or Broder may be right and Bush may yet pull victory from the jaws of defeat. Not in Iraq. That's a done deal. The victory they crave is here in the U.S. The modern conservative movement was built on the wounded pride of losing Vietnam, a war LBJ, Nixon, and Kissinger all knew was lost by 1968. The genius of Nixon and Ford was to pin the loss on the war's opponents, despite the fact that we had called a draft, sent over more than 500,000 troops at our peak, and lost 58,000 soldiers over more than a decade of fighting that included illegal bombing runs of a neighboring country. If, after all that, you can still claim that Vietnam was lost because of lefty protesters and white glove military tactics, imagine what you can do with Iraq, where our investment has been much less and our tactics even more restrained.

Toward the end of the Vietnam War, the mantra was "Declare victory and get out!" The problem is that "declaring victory" involved pushing our exit back for years and allowing the politicians responsible to evade accountability for defeat. How to remedy this situation post-Iraq? First, I think Dems need to stop pretending that there is any uncertainty about the outcome. Every time a Dem appears on TV, they need to say, "Here's how Bush lost Iraq." I never want to hear the name Bush uttered without the words "loser," "weakness," or "failure" attached, as if it were his job title. Granted, this will be a tough sell. The wingnuts control most cable news outright, and wield disproportionate influence in the MSM. There will always be a segment of the U.S. populatuion that thinks we should always win unless we're betrayed or wimp out. So give them a betrayer wimp: George W. Give them a bogeyman: conservatism.

The battle over narrative has begun. If we don't take off the white gloves and define the terms of this debate, they'll eventually find a scapegoat that will resonate, no matter how implausible. Time will make people forget what really happened, as it did in Vietnam. Our narrative certainly has an uphill battle. On the other hand, it has the advantage of being true.