Catastrophic Success

During last Thursday’s debate, Bush made a fascinating statement about our failures in Iraq. He said, “We weren't prepared for catastrophic success.”

This new term wonderfully encapsulates the hidden blessing of the Bush administration – provided that we choose to move beyond it on November 2nd. His team has created such a spectacular failure of the old operating assumptions that it may force our country as a whole to move to another level of conscious governance. And that can be seen as a catastrophic success.

“Catastrophic success” as a term points towards a deeper truth, which is that catastrophe is often a precursor for some fundamental advance. This idea finds currency in many cultures. For example, “crisis” in the I-Ching is composed of two terms that mean “danger” and “opportunity.” In Hinduism, the god Shiva is both destroyer and creator.

Bush’s new phrase nicely summarizes how we have created a catastrophe that can mobilize a whole new generation of change. The success portion depends, of course, on first looking with clear eyes upon the catastrophe in all its gory detail. Fortunately, an increasing number of conservatives are joining progressives and Democrats in seeing this administration for the catastrophe that it is.

Our ever-expanding military power now exceeds our ability to wield it sensibly. In the schoolyard, it is easy for the victor in an evenly-matched fight to be celebrated as a hero. However, if the victor outsizes the opposition by six inches and fifty pounds of muscle, he is no longer a hero but a thug preying upon a weaker victim.

America’s bristling military power has now solidified our role as the over-muscled bully on the world stage. We literally cannot fight a war in which we do not clearly and decisively destroy our opponent in a way that makes us look like a bully. Militarily, from this point forward, we are doomed to catastrophic success whenever we choose to fight. Hopefully, Iraq will be the last demonstration that we can decisively win a military war while decisively losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the people, which leaves an expensive mess.

The irony for those in the peace movement is that it is precisely our unmatchable military muscle that may sow the seeds for long-term peace by making war an unwinnable strategy. American interests cannot be hated indefinitely by the world’s people – it’s bad for business. Uprisings and terrorism are costly. Hatred has a negative effect on the bottom line. Control and spin can only serve as partial remedy. We need to be respected or the American empire will fail. And thus, military solutions grow increasingly less workable: whenever and wherever we now fight, it is likely to be a catastrophic success.

Similarly, on the domestic front, the Bush administration has been a gloriously catastrophic success. It has illuminated the problems of corporate capitalism. It has made us fight for our constitutional freedoms as the Patriot Act chisels away at them. It has revealed the dark greed at the heart of much of the political apparatus. And it has made flag-moving, line-toeing patriotism seem like a relic of a more naive past.

Domestically and internationally, then, the Bush administration has been a catastrophic success.

America stands on the cusp of a pivotal transition, from acting as a self-interested empire-state to acting as a compassionate steward for the world, thereby ushering in a global era of prosperity and peace. By exaggerating the most rapacious parts of the old order, the Bush administration has paved the way for this transition. In bludgeoning a country militarily and losing badly in the hearts and minds of the “liberated,” America is proving that wars are no longer a viable strategy to achieve long-term objectives.

Thank you, Mr. President, for creating a blazing inferno of catastrophic successes. May we learn the lessons of these successes and turn them into positive transformation of our nation on November 2nd.