"The Surge and American Military Triumphalism"
"Right-wing pundit Michael Barone has published a column on the surge in Iraq that may be the clearest expression so far of the American triumphalism over the U.S. military and Iraq that emerged in 2007. The current popularity of that idea reflects the degree to which the apologists for war, having been discredited earlier on Iraq, are now on the offensive.
Barone's theme is he "lessons to be learned" from what he calls the "dazzling success of the surge strategy in Iraq". The first lesson, he suggests, is that "just about no mission is impossible for the United States military". A year ago, he writes, everyone thought that "containing the violence in Iraq was impossible", but not, "we have seen it done".
Intoxicated by the hosannahs bestowed on Gen. David Petreaus's strategy, Barone pushes the military triumphalist creed to a new level. He goes so far as to assert the inevitability of American military triumph, regardless of the circumstances of any war....The triumphalist vision embraced by Barone and large segments of the American political elite and news media thus depends on an understanding of the conflict that omits all the facts that are inconvenient. Unfortunately for the triumphalists, those happen to be the facts that are most central to the problem. The truth that the triumphalists can never accept is that, once a large part of the population is mobilized to oppose U.S. domination, U.S. military power becomes the main problem rather than part of the solution...."
