This article was crossposted on The Daily Kos

I recently had what to seemed to me an epiphany about foreign policy.  After watching this old video of Jon Stewart reacting to the September 11th attacks, I started thinking about his closing argument (transcript here):

You know, all this talk about "These guys are criminal masterminds. They got together and their extraordinary guile and their wit and their skill. . ." It's all a lie. Any fool can blow something up. Any fool can destroy. But to see these guys, these firefighters and these policemen and people from all over the country, literally with buckets, rebuilding. . . that’s extraordinary. And that's why we have already won. . . they can't. . . it's light. It's democracy. They can't shut that down.

Jon Stewart is arguing that the terrorists cannot destroy us because we choose not to be destroyed, which got me thinking.

Let me explain. In World War I, the Allied Forces defeated the Second Reich in 1918. The Weimar Republic was established in its place, intending to function as a democracy in America's Image. We defeated the German Empire, and established the fruits of democracy in central Europe. President Wilson declared it to be "the War to end all Wars."

Only fifteen years later, Adolph Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. A month later, the Reichstag was burned, giving Hitler's government an excuse to clamp down on German civil liberties. German unhappiness with the inferior status placed upon them by the victorious powers, coupled with a crippled economy (it took 1 trillion Marks to equal one U.S. Dollar,) allowed the charismatic Hitler to convince the Germans they needed a nationalist leader, and they gladly accepted him as Führer of the Third Reich.

A Milkman walks through ruble to deliver milk. Image from JAMD

Hoping to destroy the most powerful naval power in the world, Hitler began a four-month bombing campaign on Great Britain, targeting both air force bases and later, civilian targets. Hitler hoped to destroy the Royal Air Force to allow for a naval invasion, but he also hoped to break the morale of the British people, who were struggling as the last European power opposing Hitler. Undaunted, the Brits went about their daily lives, refusing to be torn down by the Germans and handing them their first major military defeat. They went on to become our closest ally in the war.

After we defeated the Third Reich in 1945, we learned from our mistakes of World War I, and did not cripple the Germans. They saw the horrors of World War II, and chose to not travel down that road again, and unlike the interwar years, the Allies helped them rebuild their troubled economy. Fascist sentiment died, and the German people did not recreate the Nazi government. In other words, the Germans stayed peaceful and democratic only because they chose to, not because of our military victory.

Fast forward 46 years, when Al-Qaeda pulled off the deadliest terrorist attack in history. Terrorists have never succeeded in destroying our nation, or any nation, because the people have always determined to remain united. The best they can hope for is that the people will be so afraid that they will give up their civil liberties in the hopes of security, otherwise, people will dig themselves out of the ashes and rebuild themselves.

We are doing the same thing in Iraq. We crushed the Iraqi military with absurd ease, but now face a stubborn and corrosive wave of militants determined to establish a conservative theocracy. Our biggest mistake was to think we could waltz in, dispose of Saddam Hussein, and the freedom-loving intellectuals in Iraq would rise up and establish a happy, peaceful democracy in America's image. Our failure to engage in any sort of diplomacy with middle-eastern countries has allowed nationalist sentiment to continue fueling anti-Americanism, preventing our soldiers from accomplishing anything beyond stasis. We've been here before. Let's try and learn this time.