Iraq and humiliation
I was reading Thucydides, "The Peloponnesian War," and came across a striking passage. At this point, the Athenians have the advantage over the Spartans, by virtue of their victory at Pylos and encirclement of Spartan helots stationed on Sphacteria. The Spartans plea for peace, suggesting that at this point in the war they can each leave with some semblance dignity. They suggest that, even if the Athenians press their advantage and extract a more favorable peace, a settlement that is the result of humiliation will just lead to resentment, backlash, and eventually another conflict.

When we invaded Iraq, we steamrolled the Iraqi army. Many Americans thought it was hilarious, and took great pride in our overwhelming superiority. But the flipside of this is that the Iraqis must have been utterly humiliated. Even if they weren't strict nationalists or completely identify with Saddam's regime, it must have been emasculating for them to be defeated so effortlessly and yet so comprehensively.

In the aftermath, the US attempted to give them a state, to award them a democracy. But many Iraqis likely don't want to be handed anything by the Americans, as a simple point of pride. They want to win the state, to earn it for themselves as an assertion of autonomy. This, in turn, may have helped fuel the reassertion of ethnic identities and sectarian fighting.

We should have found some face-saving way for the Iraqi people to emerge from the rubble. But macho-man Bush, of course wouldn't dream of such a thing. Well asshole, look where it got you.