Is it safe to contemplate the New Reality? Like the refugees filtering back into what is left of their homes in South Lebanon, or the shopkeepers lifting their store shutters in Haifa, the rest of the world is poking its head above the dust of the latest Middle East war, wondering what it all means.
Some anonymous White House official warned us several years ago we would be in this position. You remember that Ron Suskind quote about how this administration is in the business of creating new realities - it could have come from Cheney, Rumsfeld, Libby, Addington, though it doesn't sound like something George Bush would articulate. It represents a mindset unlike anything seen before in the U.S. government: a self-confidence that transcends hubris or arrogance. It is an assumption of omnipotent power to shape the world, its problems, its resources, and its beliefs in whatever way the United States desires.
Our job, as citizens in this country, is to "judiciously contemplate" whatever New Reality our government creates. And while we are doing this, the White House will already be working on its next creation. I suppose we should be happy that we are permitted to cogitate and study these New Realities as they are born, as if we are academics hoping to publish the definitive paper on what it all means. That's a lot better than being the 1,000 or so dead Israelis and Lebanese, or their families, who weren't given the luxury of judicious contemplation. They were the victims of what Condoleezza Rice called the "birth pangs" that just naturally result when New Realities are born.
I would really like to know who in the White House originated this idea. I would like to know how an entire range of top administration officials bought into this idea. I would like to know how the new government of Ehud Olmert became infected with this virus, if we can call it that, since it seems to have spread to Israel's cabinet.
I would most of all like to know how such an idea, now put into practice in Iraq and Lebanon with patently disastrous results, still has a hold on those it has infected. But I am afraid I know the answer to this question. If you truly think you can change global realities anytime you want to your liking, you are not actually living in reality and probably haven't been for some time. You are delusional, and unable to see that you are delusional because, at least as far as the White House goes, all around you share in and reinforce your delusions.
Both George Bush and Ehud Olmert said today that this military adventure in Lebanon was a success. Hezbollah, they told us, has been badly damaged. But at least as of yesterday, Hezbollah was still raining dozens of rockets onto Haifa, and seemingly had hundreds more at its disposal. Wasn't the military goal to eliminate this threat to Israel? Since that clearly hasn't been done with this ceasefire, and almost certainly won't be under a United Nations peacekeeping force, how is this a success?
The destruction of significant parts of Lebanon's infrastructure, especially in the Sunni Muslim and Christian parts of Lebanon, was supposed to turn the rest of Lebanon against Hezbollah. But all it seems to have done is provoke anger throughout Lebanon against Israel and its arms merchant, the United States. How is this a success?
Maybe Ehud Olmert is trying to dress up a bad situation when he describes this as a success. But the real problem is that all our experience with George Bush has shown he actually believes the things he says. If he says this war was a success for Israel and a blow to terrorism, then that's exactly how he views the world. In his mind, and that of the rest of his administration, a New Reality has been created.
I see a reality that is utterly different from the one seen by the White House. I see a significant military setback for Israel, a strengthened Hezbollah (which at this stage is neither good for the U.S., Israel, or Lebanon), an Iran even more assured in its efforts to develop nuclear weapons, and most importantly, thousands of lives destroyed or damaged by this war. No party to this conflict covered themselves with moral rectitude, and the New Reality, such as it is, has left the region and the whole world worse off.
I must not be contemplating hard enough. Maybe I am not as judicious in my thinking as I should be. I worry about this, because the next New Reality may well involve a military attack on Iran or Syria, and the possible use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. And if that happens, how forgiving will the victims be? Will they truly understand that the birth pangs they are suffering as yet another New Reality is brought upon them, are all for the greater good of democracy and freedom?
Or will they resort to an Old Reality, a reality as old as the Middle East, one that requires and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? If so, I may well be on the receiving end of that Old Reality, as will millions of Americans. And there is nothing our masters in the White House can conjure up to fix that. Not even the most delusional of administrations can undo the Final Reality - the death of millions of Americans from some vengeful terrorist attack.