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Iraq and the Gap of Expectations

Opinion letter by acclaimed author and literature teacher finds 'heroic dimensions' in next week's election -- in the most classical sense

By David Mura

One way to view this election is though the principles of drama:  Is President Bush a hero who will lead his people to success and victory?  Or is he a tragic hero, one who creates his own downfall with dire consequences for those who follow him?

As a professor, I teach the principles of story.  One basic principle concerns what happens when a character takes an action:  There is a gap between what the character expects to result from his action and what actually happens.  In this way the character is forced to confront the necessities of reality, the truth about his world.

Why is this so?  One explanation is that we are not God.  We don’t have the power of omniscience.  We can’t know for certain the outcome of our actions or make the world conform exactly to our expectations or desires.

When the U.S. invaded Iraq, the Bush administration told America that our actions would bring certain results.  Saddam Hussein would be toppled and his weapons of mass destruction eliminated.  Only a certain number of U.S. troops would be required to do the job.  These U.S. forces would easily subdue the general populace.  After Saddam’s brutal dictatorship, the Iraqi people would welcome us with open arms.  Our efforts would result in an Iraq with a revitalized economy and an established democracy. 

Some of these predictions came true.  Some did not.  Some are still to be decided.  Saddam and his army were easily toppled.  But the WMD’s were not found.  More importantly, subduing the populace has proved far more difficult than originally predicted.  There have been more U.S. casualties after the end of the war than during it.  The chaos and violence now make the establishment of new economic ventures not just tenuous but deadly.  As for democracy, Wall Street Journal reporter Farnaz Fassihi speculates that if Saddam Hussein ran today he would probably be elected.  For many Iraqis, order and repression would be preferable to chaos and open violence.

As for the war on terror, certainly we have eliminated in Iraq many enemies of the United States.  But have we ended up creating even more?  Obviously, there are Iraqis who see us as liberators.  However those Iraqis who viewed us as infidel invaders were significant in number; that is why the resistance has been so hard to subdue.  Even more alarmingly, they have only increased the longer we stay.   In other words, our chances of subduing the population may only get worse as time goes on.  That is one reason why we should have had more troops at the beginning of the invasion (remember the looting after Saddam's forces fell?), as General Shinseki and others had urged.  We needed to establish order quickly rather than give any resistance time to grow. 

Beyond Iraq, our unilateral invasion plays much differently on the streets of the Middle East than it does at the Republican convention no matter how much we wish otherwise.  Indeed Iraq has become a rallying cry for many Muslims around the world.  It has helped give terrorists renewed opportunities to recruit and focus their activities.  Recent news articles tell how even disaffected European Muslims--i.e., civilians--are now traveling to join the Iraqi resistance.  Surely, this is not what the Bush administration intended or expected.

In terms of classical drama, I would say President Bush has reached the middle of the second act.  This is the point where the specter of despair and defeat loom up and the protagonist must confront the consequences of his original course of action.  Some protagonists want to give up at this point.  The successful heroes do persist, but realize that they must change both themselves and their original plans.  They must revise their character and their outlook on the world.  They must learn from their mistakes and devise a new plan of action.

In contrast, the tragic hero persists with his original plan of action.  He ignores the gap between his expectations and what has actually happened.  He makes no effort to reassess either his character or his actions.  He continues to insist that reality must conform to his wishes.  He refuses to see there is a truth to reality that can only be denied at a great cost.

Unfortunately, the American public is not watching a play.  We cannot afford to follow a leader who refuses to admit he has made a mistake and is unwilling to confront the realities before him:  That his actions have not brought about the results he expected.

David Mura teaches creative writing at Hamline University. He is the author of Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei, After We Lost Our Way, and Where the Body Meets Memory, among others.