Knocking Down Domino Theory

By Ezra

Robert Farley does a bang-up job of, well, banging up domino theory today, and I'm glad to see him doing it.  From Ben Stein's insane editorials after Deep Throat revealed himself to Peggy Noonan's odd pivot at the end of the first chapter of her memoirs, the essential rightness of domino theory keeps popping up among right-wing "intellectuals" as proof of the left's basic naiveté and idiocy.  It shouldn't.  Domino theory is the sort of supratheory used as trump card by those who want to justify war when the conflict itself is unjustified.  It also, helpfully, lets them argue for indefinite warfare, even when our continued presence would render our immediate objectives harder to attain and do enormous damage to us, our enemies, and all civilians unlucky enough to become collateral.  That's the sort of theory that deserves extra-super-special scrutiny and domino theory, as it stands, doesn't hold up.

The threat in domino theory, of course, was that American weakness anywhere would embolden our enemies everywhere.  Proponents of it think that's what happened in Vietnam.  It isn't.  But now, those same, completely incorrect folks folks have gotten us into the domino theory downside in Iraq.  Well done!

If you were an Islamic terrorist, our retaliation post-9/11 could end in one of three outcomes, two of them good for you, one bad.  The bad outcome, which was largely achieved in Afghanistan, would be American victory with relatively little trouble that segued into a basically peaceful reconstruction.  The good outcomes would be American withdrawal after only a few casualties (paper tiger outcome) or some scenario where the Americans commit their forces but, despite their best efforts and willingness to expend treasure and life, lose, proving their much-vaunted might powerless before Allah.

In Iraq, we got that last outcome.  We attempted an aggressive conquest of a Muslim land and found ourselves essentially powerless before a rag tag insurgency.  It's like getting beat by the Bad News Bears, only this time, they think themselves holy warriors.  Kind of a pity.  Domino theory was wrong on the facts, but psychologically, it made sense.  Particularly when the enemy is a group of religious extremists looking for divine confirmation of their mission.  So for the few people who still believe in it to put us in a situation that does exactly what the theory feared, well, history sure likes its jokes.