The Idealism of the Realists

  

The Idealism of the Realists

Peter Schultz

 

                  The US war in Iraq illustrates as well as anything can just how idealistic our alleged “realists” are and need to be to justify their wars.

 

                  They are idealistic, first, in thinking that their intelligence is accurate, and, so, must be believed and acted upon. Without such idealizing of intelligence, the Iraq invasion would never have happened. Because the “intelligence community” (note the idealism in that phrase!) determined that Iraq had WMDs, Iraq had to have such weapons. It was “a slam duck,” to quote George Tenet of the CIA. If actually viewed realistically, however, any such intelligence should have been treated skeptically.

 

                  Our realists were idealistic in how they thought the war would unfold, as well as its aftermath. The war would be over quickly, using minimal number of ground forces, the Iraqi people would rise up and thankfully embrace the American forces and America, Iraq would then create a working democracy, and in the war’s aftermath the Middle East would be remade to the advantage of Israel and the United States. It is difficult to think of a more idealistic scenario for Iraq. All of “it” would work out, just as realists said it would at the Bay of Pigs, in Korea, and in Vietnam, to name a few other wars our idealistic realists embraced.

 

                  It is the height of irony to call those advancing and embracing the Iraq war “realists.” Maybe this explains why some people have called the political arena intrinsically ironic. And why the political cannot be understood without a sense of irony, i.e., without a sense of humor. Insofar as our “realists” need anything, it is a sense of humor. The lack thereof explains why realism and realists so often fail.