June 6, 2004
Response to Readership

Current Affairs and Classics

Was Fallujah a "slick" bit of U.S. political maneuvering to punish the Shia'as (especially Sistani) for not reining in Sadr early on, for making to many demands in general, and for over cooperating with the Iranians?

Hanson: I’ve read that, but sort of doubt it. We were winning in Fallujah and can win again there tomorrow, if the Iraqi government asks us to. I wrote at least a half dozen essays on the need to finish the job and not let the doomed off the hook—who would then only interpret our charity as weakness, go on to murder innocents, brag of a “great victory,” and do what Islamic fascists and Baathist always do when they can get away with it: kill indiscriminately and destroy freedom. Violence increased after we halted; just as hostage taking mounted after the Spanish capitulation. I hope we get it— that nothing is worse in war in the Middle East than the half measure.

If the new government, either now or post-elections, wants Fallujah subdued, then in theory it can lead the assault with US air support and reinforcements. Perhaps that was the US idea—“OK, from the sidelines you are criticizing us for pacifying your country for you, so now you go ahead and live with your own Fallujahs to come.” The Shiites cannot take the city themselves; will criticize any who do; and can’t live with a Baathist-Sunni fascist stronghold next to Baghdad. So wisdom will come to them belatedly I suppose. I just am angry that in the long run all this will cost more American dead than had we retaken the city when it was on the brink.

What lessons should contemporary Americans learn from the period from the death of Basil II Bulgaroctonus and the Battle of Manzikert?

Hanson: Mutatis mutandis, stay on and rebuild what you destroy. Don’t invade an enemy country unless you intend to do it in force, know precisely who the enemy is, don’t trust all your allies, solidify your base before you invade—and don’t underestimate the Asian manner of war.

I'd like to know your thoughts about two books about Western intellectual history -- Richard Tarnas' "The Passion of the Western Mind" and Jacques Barzun's "From Dawn to Decadence." Do you admire either?

I know the latter far better. And read a great deal of it. I have liked Barzun’s work for years. Dawn to Decadence is a brilliant commentary, truthful about the Western propensity to turn to ornamentation, levity, and self-indulgence given its ability to promote individualism and create wealth and security—but without the Germanic determinism and crazy schemas of a Hegel or Spengler. In general, the Columbia tradition of great explicators of the West going back to Gilbert Highett and before will be lost with Barzun. We simply don’t train people like that anymore and with today’s pressures on graduate students to do theory and conform to ossified political views, an entire generation has been lost. Today’s graduate student does not learn philology, master historical data, or read great literature as in the past—one day of reading Thucydides in Greek is worth a semester of Lacan. In Who Killed Homer? We talked about this tragic decline in classical education. When I interviewed graduate students for jobs, I tired of hearing “phallocentric,” “construct,” and “privileging,” and reading all the creepy titles of their dissertations like “the poetics of masculinity” and “the construction of gender difference”—especially when they could not tell you what a helot was or where Argos was. Arrogance and ignorance are a fatal combination.

What would constitute "victory" for our enemy? Were you in their shoes, what would be your goal? How would you define victory and then remain victorious?

Hanson: An enemy victory in Iraq is something most likely to be a government of jihadists, whether Sunnis or Shiites, like Iran. An agenda of such a state? Get your hands on billions of petrodollars. Form a loose alliance with Iran and understandings with Syria. Undermine the Gulf States. Follow the Iranian/Libyan model of nuclear acquisition. Daily threaten Israel. Make the Europeans sell whatever you want, through a mixture of oil blackmail and loose talks about missiles, nukes, and launching ranges. So if they could turn Iraq into a Taliban-like badlands first, and a petrofueled theocracy second, then the rest would be easier. There are only two ways for Islamist governments now to threaten us: transform their country into terrorist havens (Afghanistan) or use petrol-dollars to buy nukes (Iran). Otherwise they are about as relevant as the Sudan or Somalia.

I have been told that Israel is not a democracy. It seems odd, for example, that when they keep expanding their 'territories', the so-called 'new' citizens of Israel -- who were the 'old' part of Palestine -- can't vote in Israel even though they're a part of Israel now. Is it true that the new parts of Israel cannot vote?

Hanson: Arabs inside Israel are citizens and vote. The so-called territories, which have never been formally annexed, are a different matter. I am sure Israel did all it could to promote elections there post-Oslo. Arafat, not the Israelis, did the one vote-one time thing. The evacuation from Gaza and much of the West Bank will be interesting to watch: will the Arabs in an Israeli-free Gaza be more likely to vote, or the Arabs living a few miles away in hated Israel proper?

The problem with questions like this one is a matter of degree—like talking about Abu Ghraib while the world ignores thousands of Muslims killed in Grozny or thousands more blacks butchered by Sudanese Arabs. On a democratic scale of 1-10, Israeli is a 9 and Arafat’s Palestine is a minus 3.

My question has to do with the kind of democracy we see in countries like Japan and India and Japan seem (to me) far removed from Western style democracies. Will you comment on the essential differences?

Hanson: Both still are in some ways traditional non-Western societies, where family, class, status, and hereditary privilege matter much more than in the United States—and thus all put a lot of wrinkles into democratic government that must accommodate older and often ancient protocols (pre-1946). Even Aristotle, however, in his “Politics” is careful to delineate all sorts of different types of democracy that still qualify as ‘people power’. The key seems to be open and fair elections, some sort of constitutional framework, and an independent judiciary that protects individual rights and the rule of law over the tribe. And then there is the foreign policy factor. Modern democracies are less likely to fight one another; and thus we don’t see India or Japan threatening countries like nearby Turkey or South Korea.

It appears now to be conventional wisdom (even amongst war hawks) that we have made many major mistakes in Iraq yet I keep asking myself “What were those mistakes?”

Hanson: Well there were mistakes, though troop levels were not one of them. But the errors were not major enough to derail the plan altogether. Here are a few quibbles.

1) We allowed the looting to go on in fear of having to shoot 500 or so to restore order—and lost $13 billion in infrastructure and set an example of laxity; 2) the army could have been reformed rather than abandoned, that would have allowed the unemployed and idle to turn their zeal from shooting reformers and restorers; 3) we dickered at home and didn’t get the reconstruction money there in time; (4) we did not arrest militia leaders at the very beginning and then did not level terrorist enclaves which led to something like Fallujah, which should have been crushed.

But all that being said, the strategy was right and the ultimate verdict may well be ok. If we wish to look for stupid things, then we should go back and examine things like Okinawa where everything went wrong and thousands died needlessly—and yet today are rightly seen as heroic victories. Part of our problem is that ironically the 3-week victory set up impossible standards and expectations—and was not long enough to punish, kill, or humiliate Baathists who ran rather than fought.

Do you have any recommendations for good historical fiction?

Hanson: I am just about to start writing a novel about the great invasion of 369 BC and the freeing of the helots. For Ripples of Battle, I went back and read 2-3 novels by Lew Wallace—wooden dialogue, but fascinating plot twists. I think the movie Gladiator was based on an early and now mostly unread play of his about Commodius. I’ve read much of Flaubert and even the early Gore Vidal such as Julian and liked them a great deal. Historical fiction, especially dialogue, is not easy.

I don't agree with Naill Ferguson' notion of a new American empire, but admire greatly both his courage and his audacity of spirit. Perhaps, you would identify in a Response the principal disagreements you have with Professor Ferguson.

Hanson: Well, he has written a lot, so it seems uncharitable to quibble. And I reviewed very favorably his latest book for the New York Post. But here it goes. I don’t think comments like conscripting the unemployed, ex-cons, and assorted illegal immigrants in the army for imperial service has much chance of practical application. And familiarity with the US reveals a strong isolationist streak deeply ingrained in the American people. Rather than berating us for being in denial about our present “empire,” he might accept that such a people are simply not easy for good reason with the idea of running the world. And finally I don’t really think we do have an empire—no tribute; we pay for bases; no land taken since 1898; allies that tell us where to go when we ask them for help; voluntary exits from places like Panama and the Philippines; no flattening of a Grozny when we feel like it; and a strong anti-imperial lobby on both the right and left that make it hard to spend over 5-6% GNP on defense. Also, I don’t think WWI was a mistake, but a tragic necessity in stopping something odious like Prussian militarism. After the last two years, I doubt Americans would do the Balkans again; and I’d be surprised that we care much anymore to “protect” Europe that is bigger and wealthier than we are.

After reading your article on the appeasement of the Iranian clerics, I have a question. Didn't the US and Kissinger support bringing the Shah into the US for medical treatment?

Hanson: Kissinger I think did, but he was out of office. Carter, of course, had him shuttled all over the globe. The problem with the pathetic “Will you take him for us” or “Let’s hope he dies first” was that we got blamed both for supporting a dictator and then appeared ungracious, if not petty, in abandoning him; thus the mullahs hated us for being both hostile and weak at the same time.

The students wanted a repeat of the Tsar executions, or a Stalinist moment to wipe out his entire family in televised show trials. But history is full of ironies. Those wild-eyed student Marxists got rid of the client of the Great Satan and now have had a quarter-century of indigenous Iranian theocracy to savor. I’ve met too many Iranian Marxist exiles; they are a strange bunch, still nursing wounds of the 1950s; angry at the US for the Shah; angry at the US for allowing Khomeini to hijack their leftist revolution; angry at everyone but themselves—and angry always at America but not too angry to come to live in the Great Satan. They need to get a life. The hostage-takers themselves, now aging, are not so proud of their acts. They don’t regret the lawlessness or the anti-Americanism, but they grasp that they helped solidify Khomeini, who was as autocratic and corrupt as the Shah but without the efforts to modernize or emancipate women. Why these creeps like Khomeini who lived in France can’t leave the West alone, I don’t know, but they all seem to flock to what they profess hatred for.

How do you find the work of retired Army Colonel Ralph Peters (if you are familiar with) and will you comment on his novels and writings?

Hanson: I did a radio show with him once and found him likeable and knowledgeable—and occasionally read his New York Post writings. I have not read his novels or books yet. We seem mostly to agree and then on a few topics (e.g., Rumsfeld) suddenly seem to be at odds in our views. But one thing is clear: from the very early going, he and I both concluded that victory is accomplished only through defeating and then humiliating the enemy—and moderation in war and especially in the Middle East is suicidal. I don’t think I was so critical or pessimistic about our many mistakes. I’m more in sympathy with a Krauthammer or Mark Steyn that the real problem are not errors on the ground, but the inability of millions of Americans to grasp the stakes involved in Iraq. As a historian I suffer from the long view of seeing crises of the day not as fatal as many imagine, but the natural slips and blunders inherent in war. The key is not just to cite our mistakes, but to ascertain to what degree they loom fatal, given larger strategic considerations. Strategically, the Iraqi war was wise; the tactics are often fouled up, but we have some latitude for error. Looking at individual battles in World War II would have been profoundly depressing—examining the larger economic and political picture would have been reassuring. All this is the long answer to say that, yes, I like Peters’ essays.

Who, if any, do you see as the future gifted military historians, those who, with the gift of documents, interviews, etc. in 30 or 50 years will be able to write with insight about the military events that have just so recently occurred in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Hanson: That is a good question. I suppose an aged Niall Ferguson will be one of those historians; I know a few others in the ancient world. But I worry that a John Keegan or Donald Kagan will not be so easily replaced—given the nature of graduate education these days, which is theoretical and therapeutic. And we’ve lost the great storytellers like a Cornelius Ryan and Ambrose as well. Only a few true scholars like Horne remain.

You spoke about a book on wars throughout history. What is the title?

Hanson: I wrote a book Carnage and Culture about battles that reveals Western prowess in a variety of areas. But for definitive histories start with Fuller or Delbrück who both wrote long multivolume histories centered around great battles.