AMERICANS LEARN EMPIRE IS MESSY
I had one of those TV call in shows on in the background as I was getting dressed this morning. A caller complained that every day now, the headline is US soldier killed in Iraq. And this is becoming an increasing complaint heard in the American population that was once so gung-ho about the invasion and conquest ("liberation", if you must). And I'm really stupefied. WHAT DID THEY EXPECT?!

I’ve it countless times both before the war and since: empire is messy and costly. I'm neither a political science genius nor a visionary nor a fortune teller. But I do know a little bit about history. Empire is a messy and costly business. That's why the Europeans got out of that business. Why did my countrymen think we'd be exempt from history?

The answer is because Americans are an supremely self-confident people. We believe we can do anything. That history doesn't apply to us. That it’s up to us to invent our own history. This is why we became a great country. But just like great people, great countries typically contain the seeds of their own self-destruction. The seeds are usually found in the same qualities which made them great in the first place. That's the irony of greatness. Self-confidence is good. Arrogance is bad. There's an extremely fine line between the two. Arrogance frequently leads to recklessness, to overreach.

Because Americans are so optimistic, we believed the Iraq conquest would be quick, easy and relatively painless. Sure, we knew intellectually that people (ie: our soldiers) would die but we accepted that... when we thought it would be quick.

But our supreme self-confidence led to unrealistic expectations. It was NEVER going to be quick. Sure, the war itself was always likely to end in a short-period of time. But the occupation and re-building of Iraq was always going to be troublesome, complicated and messy. Now, we're finding out just how much so and we don't like it. The initial unrealistic expectations has led to quick disappointment, frustration and anger.

Still, the situation we (ie: American troops) are in now was entirely foreseable. It's just that before, the American people didn't want to see it. We wanted to believe the best. An admirable trait, but not always a wise one.

One of the reasons teenagers often do foolish things is because they are stubborn and believe they're invulnerable. Americans tend to be the same way, because in terms of military strength, no one else is in the same galaxy. But teenagers learn they're not indestructible when they go too fast and crash their car. And Americans are learning about limits too, that not everything can be solved by explosives, rolling columns of tanks and "smart bombs." Some problems require more subtle, complex solutions. We Americans not only aren't good at subtlety but don't see any value in it. Maybe we should.