Hubris runs through the White House

Matthew Engel, Guardian News Service, Washington

When war broke out, the mood in the country that started it was one of delight. One newspaper issued a special edition with the headline The Blessing of Arms and said: "It is a joy to be alive. We have wished so much for this hour." Counter-opinions were muted. In the legislature a few members were heard to mutter: "This incompetent diplomacy!" And one diplomat was heard to wail to a colleague that everyone was against them. "Siam is friendly, I am told," the other replied.

This is, of course, another of those sneaky historical intros. The paper was the Alldeutscher Blaetter, and the quotes are in The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman's classic account of the slither to war in 1914. This was the book President John F. Kennedy read just before the Cuba missile crisis; he recommended it to all-comers as a caution against pride and bad judgment leading nations to disaster.

George W. Bush's last-known relevant reading was Supreme Command, by one Eliot Cohen, an argument in favor of political leaders imposing their own will on the generals.

As in 1914, war has brought a new reality that has defied predictions. On the home front, there is still an extraordinary absence of patriotic display. In our neighborhood, where hundreds of stars-and-stripes were unfurled after Sept. 11, I have counted just two flags on private houses, excluding those that are always there -- balanced by one "War Is Not The Answer!" placard. One flag-maker in supposedly bellicose North Carolina describes sales as "fairly normal".

Equally, there is no surge of opposition. The polls show headline support for the war running steadily enough, but that seems to mask a great national sullenness. There is no point in arguing about it anymore. And whichever side of that argument one was on, there is now only one realistic road out, and it lies through Baghdad. Flags have been replaced by yellow ribbons, the symbol of hope for imprisoned heroes. Everyone wants the prisoners released.

And even the rose-vision goggles worn by so many American journalists cannot mask the uncomfortable facts from the front. Late last week, the first reports came in of starvation -- not among the Iraqis, but among the U.S. marines, down to one meal a day because the supply lines were so stretched. And this is going to plan, is it?

We don't need embedded reporters to convey what the mood must be in hungry marine units. But there are intriguing fragments suggesting distinct unease in other unexpected quarters too. More than 200,000 National Guard and reserve forces are now on active duty. These are working people who expected to express their spirit of service with a little weekend soldiering or crisis assistance. But the demands of homeland security and successive wars mean that some are having one-year tours extended to two. These are people who will often lose money, sometimes their jobs, perhaps their families -- and, of course, occasionally their lives. Some are getting restless.

And the bereaved families -- or even just vulnerable ones -- are not necessarily inclined to glum acquiescence either. This war has never been popular in the black community, which provides a disproportionate quantity of the armed forces (particularly when compared to the number of family members of senior government officials and warmongering columnists). Private Howard Johnson of the 507th Maintenance Company had been very excited about going to Iraq: He was killed in an ambush last week. "I don't feel it was necessary," said his mother, Gloria.

With the number of dead on all sides approaching 1,000, many more will be feeling the same. How this mood develops will depend hugely on whether the days and weeks spread to months and years. What we can already say with certainty is that the notion of Iraq as some sort of prelude to the Bush regime mopping up everyone else who disagreed with them has now receded, with distinct consequences for the U.S.'s future attitude to the world. Their next glorious adventure will be a much, much harder sell.

It was summed up most succinctly by Larry Wilcox, a letter- writer to the Los Angeles Times: "Thanks to Bush and his war agenda, we've learned that the Tigris runs through Iraq, and the Hubris runs through the White House."