It is dispiriting that so soon after its decisive repudiation at the polls the ideology that brought the world to its knees is once again gaining traction in the US. The ugly side of America is once again rearing its repulsive head, what with Palin becoming an influential commentator on current affairs (!!!) and Massachusetts of all places handing Ted Kennedy's senate seat to a Republican. And it is astonishing that the spearhead of this attack is rabid opposition to government interference in the economy, a process started by Bush himself face to face with the ruins left behind by his stewardship and one moreover that under Obama was able to steady the keel of the foundering vessel of state. All problems have not been solved for sure, with unemployment still a major vexation. But the American economy is once again roaring ahead according to the latest figures, and besides one can imagine with horror what the consequences would have been of a continuation of extremist Republicanism.

The explanation for this can only be one that is valid for human affairs in general, namely that human beings regardless of geographic or cultural boundaries are swayed much more by ideas that have been lodged in their minds through generations of ideological tutelage rather than by a sober evaluation of empirical facts. This blind commitment is in many cases outright suicidal. The average American for instance seems to be persuaded that Saddam was responsible for 9/11 and that the invasion of Iraq enhanced the security of their country. Both of these claims are of course patently false: the occupation of Iraq actually delivered that territory into the hands of Al Qaeda while at the same time enhancing decisively the regional power of Iran. After 2003 America was in a much worse geostrategic and security position, if only because its actions in Mesopotamia could be portrayed as an attack on the Muslim world as a whole, while at the same time seeming to validate all the cookie arguments of anti-American extremists in the West itself. The mere assumption of power by Obama was of itself a decisive antidote to these tendencies. But then again the average right-wing American seems to believe that Saddam and Obama are the same person simply because of the president's middle name. Again during the massive right-wing assault against Obama's health care plans during last summer there were people intoxicated by Palin's nonsense about "death panels" and the like screaming "don't you dare touch my Medicare", forgetting that Medicare is a government program passed by Democrats quite similar to what the present administration is trying to introduce. This delusional state of mind cannot unfortunately be mended by any conceivable rational means, at least in the medium term. People just cling to fancies calibrated to their mentality and promising some kind of salvation that never comes about. But no matter. The important thing is believing in what you want to believe regardless of whatever evidence might be adduced against it.

To be fair this propensity to self-deception is not a monopoly of the American people. It is ingrained in all cultures and societies, as previously stated. But the point is that the human race in its totality is in much greater peril from the delusions of the American populace or those of the downtrodden Muslim masses for that matter, compared to the delusions for instance of certain Balkan peoples that they are the direct biological descendants of Pericles or Alexander.

On a related matter, it does no good at all to Tony Blair and his fame to add insult to injury as his did the other day before the Chilcot inquiry on Iraq. To declare that even if he had known that Saddam did not possess any WMD (he actually did know, but for the sake of the argument let us assume that he did not) he would still have gone ahead with the invasion smacks of egregious callousness especially in the presence of the relatives of those who died in this misguided and criminal enterprise. It would have been much more decent to admit that since Bush was determined to invade anyway, he decided to go along in the hope of restraining the wildest excesses of American power. I believe this is the real reason that he did it, and one might sympathize with the conundrum he was in. The British regime in Basra was after all a much more politic affair compared to the American imperial (and incompetent) administration in Baghdad. Tony Blair was a great premier for the UK domestically. But this will be unfortunately forgotten, for he has chosen to stake his reputation on the most sordid and botched enterprise of his term of office. In this there is a precise parallel in American political history: it is called Lyndon Johnson.