GEORGE, DICK, AND DON OF ARABIA

Okay, so maybe none of the top policy makers who have given us the Iraq quagmire and caused our standing to plummet across the Muslim world had much knowledge of that world, particularly its history, culture, and religion. Maybe any pertinent courses they took in their long ago college careers glossed over the field. Maybe their highest level of academic accomplishment on the topic was the proverbial “Gentleman’s C.” Maybe their reading habits didn’t include such esoteric matter.

But didn’t someone at least see the movie Lawrence of Arabia?

The dominant, pervasive role that tribal and ethnic disputes played in the lives of the folk that poor naïve Lawrence was attempting to educate about nation-building certainly must have left some impression. Any viewer of that movie surely had to come away with the thought that maybe the Middle East and New England-style town hall meetings lacked compatibility.

But apparently not. How else does one explain the actions and rhetoric that have probably enlarged many times over the ranks of those who would do us harm? How else does one comprehend the crusade to bring “freedom” and “democracy” to a part of the world that has known practically nothing but authoritarianism during its recorded history?

So now we have a world wrought by George, Dick, and Don of Arabia. It is a world in which our enemies are more numerous than they were five years ago, in which our military is dangerously over-extended, and in which we are fed such pabulums as the insurgency is in its last throes, Hezbollah has been defeated, and we will achieve victory in Iraq. It is world that caters to the unthinking. It is a world in which anti-intellectualism has triumphed.

The only victory that George, Dick, and Don of Arabia have thus far achieved is over any intelligent, objective analysis of the world situation. They brought myopic ideology to the table. They have lowered the level of debate to little more than slogans and buzz words. They have reached for the lowest common denominator among the American people, and they have found it.

In just over two years, the nation will have new leadership. The challenge for that leadership, whether it be Democrat or Republican, will be to make critical thinking again respectable. The challenge will be to base policy and actions on facts and not narrow ideology. The challenge will be to refocus the nation from the lowest common denominator to a more thinking part of the electorate. The challenge will be to return America to its better self.

DSH