What if it works?
We're talking about the troop surge. Really. What if attacks,
bombings, injuries, deaths, all decline precipitously in Iraq in
the next two years?
And what if the John Bolton-engineered sanctions against Iran
continue to work? What if the surge and the change of tactics that
help in Iraq also do more to destabilize the state sponsors of
terrorism in Iran who have placed so many of their eggs in the
anti-American basket? And what if the U.S. Navy ships in the
Persian Gulf make an impression? What if the large number of
pro-American youths in Iran get emboldened? In short, what if a
series of circumstances lead to having Mr. Evil Ahmadinejad
deposed?
What if, meanwhile, the American public finally starts giving
President George W. Bush credit for the economy that has been doing
so splendidly for about four years now?
What if, as seems increasingly likely, the jury in the Scooter
Libby trial decides that Libby is not guilty? What if, on the other
hand, Harry Reid's questionable real estate transactions continue
to stink to high heaven, and what if, as expected, Democratic Rep.
William "Cold Cash" Jefferson of Louisiana is indicted and then
convicted for various financial misdeeds? What if, in short, it is
the Democrats and not the Republicans who get blamed for having a
"culture of corruption"?
What if President Bush gets a chance to appoint yet another
Supreme Court justice, and he chooses someone equally as impressive
as Samuel Alito and John Roberts, and the Democratic leadership
tries to block the appointment but end up caving because public
pressure on them gets too strong?
What if the Senate Republicans, under the canny leadership of
Mitch McConnell, actually start to be guided by, and to
communicate, serious, conservative ideas? What if the Republican
backbenchers in the House, people like Mike Pence, somehow shame
their leadership into getting a clue?
What if somebody of the high caliber and brilliance of the SEC's
Chris Cox, or with the combination of communications skills and
genuineness of Tony Snow, steps in to the presidential race and
unites conservatives around him? Or what if somebody already in the
race, a James Gilmore or a Duncan Hunter perhaps, catches fire a la
Jimmy Carter in 1975-76 and proves to be better at "connecting"
with voters than anybody expects? (Or what if one of the
front-runners for the GOP nod successfully allays all the doubts
being expressed about him?)
What if the media get serious and successfully expose (again,
but this time successfully) both the utter corruption and the
breathtaking phoniness of Hillary Clinton? And what if they expose
the phoniness of John Edwards, too, and the shallowness of Barack
Obama's ideas?
What if Karl Rove re-establishes his reputation as a political
genius and designs a stunning political comeback for the
president?
What if conservatives, and the congressmen who owe their
elections to conservatives, begin more effectively to devote
themselves to first principles and to communicating the same in a
way that resonates at American kitchen tables?
Free minds and free markets, after all, really do lead to
prosperity. Peace can be achieved through strength. The sum of good
government, as Thomas Jefferson said, is one that is "wise and
frugal [and that] shall leave men free to regulate their own
pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the
mouth of labor and bread it has earned."
And order, as Russell Kirk always reminded us and as Rudy
Giuliani proved in New York City, is an essential precondition for
lasting liberty. And traditional values in the Judeo-Christian
tradition, as M. Stanton Evans continues to remind us, are the
wellspring of our civic tradition.
Conservatives need to reconnect with the mind of Madison, and
the infectious ebullience of Jack Kemp, and the energy of the
Republicans elected in 1994 to be congressional freshmen. And, not
least, they need to recapture the courage of Churchill.
Conservatives well grounded in their own traditions will not
scoff at all those "what ifs" as mere pipe dreams. Rather than
scoff, they will roll up their sleeves and try to turn those "what
ifs" into reality.
That's what conservatism's greatest modern champion, Ronald
Reagan, always did. In 1980 the American economy was an absolute
shambles of high unemployment, high interest rates, high gas prices
and long gas lines, and high inflation, all at the same time; the
Soviets were dominating Afghanistan; the Marxists were on the move
in El Salvador and Nicaragua and Angola and Grenada; Americans were
in the midst of being held hostage in Iran for 444 days; Moammar
Ghadafi and Saddam Hussein were building terrorist-sponsoring
dictatorships; and Communist Parties were making headway in Western
European countries while the Soviets massed huge armies and weapons
in Eastern Europe; and (horror of horrors) Teddy Kennedy was making
what seemed to many at the time like a seriously achievable run for
the American presidency.
And Ronald Reagan (on whose birthday I write these words) looked
at all this and said, in effect: "What if we Americans remember our
better selves and our highest principles and actually fix all these
things?"
And the conservative movement of Buckley and Rusher and Tyrrell
and Blackwell and Weyrich and Viguerie and Kemp and Friedman, soon
to be bolstered by Jeane Kirkpatrick and William Bennett, and
allied with Thatcher and Pope John Paul II and a union leader named
Walesa, along with thousands of other conservatives who kept the
faith, all joined behind Reagan and, yes, used their power to start
the world over again.
If they did it then, so can we do it now. The better angels of
our nature call us forth, and the job before us is hard but
achievable. It is achievable, because we are Americans --
Americans, under God.
topics:
Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Supreme Court, Iraq, Iran, Conservatism, Energy
