The Four Stages of Neocon Grief: How Republicans Come to Terms with Defeat in Iraq

In the next 12-18 months, we will begin to see the Republican establishment come to terms with defeat in Iraq.  It isn’t going to be a pretty sight. Actually the process has been going on for some time, it’s simply advancing to a new phase.  As if mourning a lost loved one, the Republicans are passing through the emotional stages of grief except, in this case, it’s an idea that died.  Not just any idea, but the cause célèbre of the neoconservative movement.

The stages are as follows:

Stage 1: Denial.  The most common manifestation of this is blaming the messenger – the media simply underreport the good news, so the public is left with the misleading impression that the war is not going well.  The other method is to recognize the problem but deny its importance (e.g.  “freedom is untidy”).  Republicans first entered this stage in the summer of 2003, but almost all have since moved on (except maybe Glenn Reynolds.)

Stage 2: Defiance.  In this stage, they start to recognize that the bad news is real, but they assume that all that’s needed is a little perseverance and everything will be okay.  Republicans in Stage 2 like to point to problems in Japan and Germany in the early post-war period (as if the insurgency in Iraq had any analogue in postwar Germany or Japan – but I digress).  Most of the Republican establishment entered this stage in the spring of 2004.  Bush, never at the head of his class, was a late arrival to stage 2.  He got there just in time for the first debate with John Kerry (remember “it’s hard work”?).  Like most Republicans, Bush is still in this stage.

Stage 3 – Scapegoating.  Also called Blamestorming, this is the first stage where they actually recognize that the war has been lost. Republicans in the Scapegoating stage, however, still cling to the idea that invading Iraq was a good idea, they just think that somebody (not them) made some grievous error that caused everything to go awry.  Republicans are just beginning to enter this stage (actually, some probably entered last fall but decided to keep mum until after the election).  Early arrivals to stage 3 include the editors at Stratfor .  Others, such as Bill Kristol, are laying the groundwork by calling for Rumsfeld’s ouster, but have not yet publicly admitted that the war is lost.  Presumably they are holding out hope that the election might pacify the insurgency.  Shortly after the election is when we’ll really start to see the Republicans enter this stage, and I suspect it will get ugly (more on this in a subsequent post).   

Stage 4 – Contrition.  The final stage of acceptance, this is where they admit that the war was a bad idea from the start.  I suspect Andrew Sullivan will be among the first to get to this stage.  Many others lack the intellectual integrity to ever get to this stage - indeed, a sizable number of Republicans are still stuck in Stage 3 for Vietnam. 

What we will be seeing over the next 12-18 months is the Republican establishment move from stage 2 to stage 3, that is, from Defiance to Scapegoating.  I suspect this will get very ugly and claim a number of victims along he way (Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith come to mind).  Stay tuned.

Comments

[Jennifer Hagstrom]

A prediction: regardless of the extent to which they eventually accept the idea that the war was a mistake, they will NEVER address the resulting disconnect between the reality (the war was a mistake) and the extent to which they used their religious/moral convictions to buttress people's will to go to war (this is a matter of good versus the axis of evil). The manipulation of the american public will neither be admitted nor examined.

[Toni]

frankly, the more of the lying, scheming, manipulating, arrogant, deliberately blind, immoral "scapegoats" the LSMADBI non-scapegoats get rid of, the better off we'll all be.

[Jon]

LSMADBI?

[Toni]

"lying, scheming, manipulating, arrogant, deliberately blind, immoral"

t.