Unlimited guilt, hubris, arrogance — and The Tragic Mind

Robert Kaplan is renowned for his keen insight in covering foreign wars and the politics associated with them. Unusually for a journalist, he has had the ear of past American administrations. Such is his reputation and credibility. How strange then, that his latest book, The Tragic Mind, is entirely about ancient Greek versus Shakespearean plays and characters. It takes a while to even get used to the idea that journalist Robert Kaplan is using fictional characters to explain the harsh realities of the world. Wars are no longer sufficient then?

Right up front, Kaplan admits shame for supporting and encouraging the American invasion of Iraq. His thought at the time was that Saddam Hussein was so evil, the country could only benefit from his removal. That the USA clearly had no idea how to win the peace, had lost every war it entered since WWII, and was invading Iraq on a pack of obvious lies, did not weigh on his support or influence to plow ahead with a coup. He was gung-ho for war. Strange for a war correspondent.

He then watched in horror as hundreds of thousands of civilians were murdered, hundreds of thousands of soldiers were turned into neurotic hate machines, trillions of dollars were drained away to achieve nothing, and that Iraq 20 years later is far worse off than before America liberated it.