Kerry Spot    [ jim geraghty reporting ]
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I didn’t send Kathryn any predictions earlier this year, mostly because I didn’t have any and didn’t think much about it until I read the NRO gang’s thoughts today. But after reading them, it spurred me to solidify a couple of gut thoughts.

I think one of the hottest political debates of 2005 will center around conservative supporters in the Iraq war who begin to reexamine the justification and risk/benefit analysis of the war. This discussion’s tone and intellectual rigor will be light years apart from the shrill anti-war shrieking on the left.

One central argument will come from pro-war-on-terror conservatives who conclude, “Okay, bringing democracy to Iraq hasn’t worked as well as we hoped or expected. What do we learn from this?”

A key point will be that if intelligence about threats is wrong, few policy decisions based on that intelligence will turn out as well as lawmakers hope. Porter Goss’ efforts to overhaul and improve the CIA will be seen as the most important effort in American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War, because it is the effort upon which so many other endeavors rest.

The use of preemptive action to achieve “regime change” against an entire nation like Iraq will be seen as a rare, once-per-generation step in American national security. A consensus will emerge that preemptive action is best used not against entire nations or governments but against regions, particularly lawless border provinces where no government has a firm grip - the Lebanese Bekaa Valley, or the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

A preferred method will be, for example, for local tribal heads who are sympathetic to al-Qaeda to simply be found dead one morning, with no clear “fingerprints” of U.S. military action. By comparison, tribal leaders who help authorities find al-Qaeda members will keep finding piles of cash on their doorstep.

I predict we will see the emergence of “Pragmacons” - a new self-proclaimed “middle group” of conservatives. These thinkers will share the ideals of the “neocons” - spreading democracy, pluralism, free markets, free speech and religious freedom throughout the world, and relentlessly crushing Islamist terror networks and the rogue states that snuggle with them. But the Pragmatic Cons will also conclude that American options and resources in this effort are limited by a faulty U.S. intelligence system and the Herculean difficulties of turning “subjects” into “citizens.”

Despite the “pragma” prefix, these conservatives will dismiss Nixonian and Paleocon Realpolitik as a lame artifact useless in a post-9/11 world.

The left, still opposed to just about any exercise of American military power under a Republican president, will say this is all just the same conquer-the-world-for-Israel-and-Halliburton stuff under a new name, and dismiss the new folks as “Decepticons.” The editors of the New York Times will gleefully relish the new phrase as much as they currently love (and overuse, and misuse) “neocon,” while having no idea where the name came from or who Megatron and Soundwave are.

By the way, I’m not endorsing “pragmaconservatism” here, just predicting that this line of thinking is going to emerge in the coming months and pick up steam. Of course, I also predict that the most vocal and passionate foe of this line of thinking will be Michael Ledeen.

UPDATE: One of my favorite liberal readers rewords it:

"The neocons/conservatives/Republicans will back track dramatically from their current posture on world Democratization and 1) assume no blame, and in fact blame the CIA for the whole mess, 2) downplay the whole mess as an error in judgment - never mind the tens of thousands of dead Iraqi citizens and thousands of dead US soldiers, 3) try to save face at home, but still ignore the rest of the world, 4) continue to bash Democrats for being against the Iraq War for "the wrong reason", and lastly 5) invent a new name and mission for our foreign/military policy in hopes that we forget about the incredible fiasco they created by the time 2008 rolls around."

Well, um, no, that's not really the way I would put it...

[Posted 12/30 12:47 PM]