Change in the weather

IN THE NEWS
A severe wind storm blew into Northern California yesterday. Homes vibrated and rattled. Lawn furniture toppled. Flurries of branches, papers, and other detritus took wing. Drivers lost their usual confidence (or overconfidence), feeling the wind smack hard into the sides of their cars.

Over the years, I've noticed a difference between how native Californians and emigres from other parts of the country react to dramatic turns in the weather. People who haven't lived in California for most or all of their lives often seem surprised that the cimate isn't always as bucolic as they expected, almost as if the weather gods had betrayed them. Most life-long Californians treat changes in the weather with a bit more sangfroid. By no means is that a sign of some superiority natives should feel over non-natives. It's just that, once you've lived with fires, earthquakes, flash floods, and yes, the occasional wind storm, you're just less surprised. I'm sure that, if I were to relocated to North Carolina, I'd react to an earthquake much the same way: Didn't I move here to escape this crap?

Much as native Californians treat changes in the weather with little anxiety, people who have lived with the history of the Vietnam War are less alarmed by the changes in public attitudes towards the Iraq War. Clearly, support for sustaining the war effort has ruptured. If the public opinion polls before the midterm elections were not enough of an indication, the elections themselves silenced any argument about what the majority of Americans really think about the war. Disentangling the threads of public opinion--what do Americans think about the importance of Iraq, the way in which the Bush Administration has fought this war, the possibility or impossibility of changing strategy, now that civil war has deepened--may prove to be a fruitless exercise at this point. Not enough Americans support fighting this particular war, in a particular way, for particular stakes, to continue an open-ended campaign in Iraq.

The war has now reached its limits. Homes built in Malibu, no matter how expensive they may be, are vulnerable to the mud slides and fires that are the hard realities of living on that patch of the California coast. Similarly, American strategy in Iraq has to accommodate the impatience of the American public--and probably should have from the very beginning. Now, we're down to a small number of unpleasant choices, from a Vietnam-like withdrawal to the type of fragile cordon sanitaire that the United States unsuccessfully tried to erect during Lebanon's civil war.

As unappetizing as these options might be, none of them are fatal if ingested.  The United States can survive its failures, as long as it treats them practically. All histrionics among talking heads aside, there is no one who has stabbed America in the back. The American people get to decide what wars to start, and when to end them; which leaders to give the benefit of the doubt, and which ones lose this trust. If these leaders failed to make the necessity of the war aims convincing (or the content of these goals clear), or the strategy pursued seem wise, the burden of failure falls on the shoulders of these leaders, not the American electorate.

The worst thing the US government could do now is to act like the person who builds a home in Malibu and fills it with precious, irreplaceable family heirlooms. Fires, earthquakes, and mud slides will come. So, too, will the end of the American public's willingness to continue any war, good or bad. Voters know what many leaders and the chattering class seem unwilling to say: no battle is more important than the war; no war is more important than the military; no military is more important than the nation that wields it. Americans clearly feel that they have paid too much for the Iraq War already, from lives lost to liberties damaged, to continue the investment for little hope of return.

As soon as the wind dies down, Californians remove toppled trees, chase down trash can lids, and rake and sweep until their yards appear tidy again. Even the worst catastrophes don't convince Californians, natives and newcomers, that it's not worth living here. So, too, will Americans grieve over the tragedy of iraq, but they will hardly retreat from the world.

Comments

[John]

I liked this site a lot ever since I first came across it a few months ago. I read all the archives in a few sittings, and check back almost every day for updates. But now I see that you're a fellow Californian? Arms and Influence just became my favorite military blog.

Keep up the great work.