"Waiting For Yamamoto" Watch

A new and unfortunately necessary feature here at TCR. Yamamoto refers to Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese Navy commander who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor. With increasingly frequency, we're seeing references to events like Pearl Harbor and 9/11 appear, but not in the context one might think.

Last week, I noted the oft-quoted passage from the PNAC report a year before 9/11:

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor.

I also noted this recent snippet from Michael Ledeen:

What did you expect? They have Syran on their borders, and we have not demonstrated the capacity to win the war.

Perhaps that will change without yet another Pearl Harbor.

While of course no one wishes for a calamity on the scale of Pearl Harbor or 9/11, it's arguable that some may see a silver lining in the prospect of one. There's this pesky problem, you see, of the complacent masses who "don't get it." That's where catalysts come in. Here's Stanley Kurtz, apparently lamenting the absence of one:

So we are running out of good alternatives. Option one is to pretend that 9/11 was an isolated incident (or a hidden internal conspiracy), not the revelation of a new and serious long-term danger. Many anti-war types prefer option one. Option two is to acknowledge the danger of mass-scale terrorism using weapons of mass destruction, but rely on negotiations, economic incentives, “grand bargains,” etc. to solve the problem (the favorite Democratic solution). In the absence of a credible threat of force (and maybe even then, given the nature of our terrorist foe), I think option two is doomed. Option three is to deploy force to preempt one rogue state and frighten others, while depending on a rapidly-spreading wave of democratization to assure long-term change, and permit relatively rapid American military withdrawal. Option three is not working out as planned. Option four is an expanded American military and a combination of more attacks (eg. a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities) with an extended and enlarged occupation of Iraq, working real social transformation and democratization. In the absence of a major new terror strike on the U.S., or an Iran on or over the nuclear brink, option four is politically unsustainable.

So Kurtz considers "Option four," which entails a fashionable but warped interpretation of Schumpeter's "creative destruction," as potentially the most effective. But the lack of a 9/11-type catalyst makes it unfeasible politically, at least for now. Starting to see a pattern here?

An important complement to this is the "Somnolent Masses" meme. Here's a painful post from Kathryn Lopez:

If you take my view of World Trade Center , it's exactly the right movie for this week — a mall reminder that we're at war. Whether or not people want to be reminded is another story, of course. But the U.K. news makes it hard to forget, so might as well run with it...because we are (at war). (And that fact isn't George Bush's fault, it's the fault of the evildoers who want us dead.

More Lopez:

Tim Montgomerie from ConservativeHome.com notes in an e-mail to me this morning:

It is politically vital that the police have proof that this is a genuine plot. After recent episodes - not least the false arrest of people at Forest Gate - people have declining confidence in the intelligence used by the police and government.

If the intelligence is correct - and up to ten planes were targeted by terrorists (all destined for America) - it might wake a few Britons up the danger of the terrorist threat. Britons have already largely forgotten the 7/7 attacks and those attempted just two weeks afterwards.

I fear, however, that Britain is increasingly 'Spanish' in its reaction to these incidents. Within hours there'll be pundits blaming the invasion of Iraq and Blair's support for Israel for making Britain vulnerable to these attacks.

Start with cynicism, mix with desperation on Iraq and the midterm elections, add some illegitimate co-opting of Schumpeter, and throw in a bit of Rapturism. What you seem to get is the belief---never stated openly, of course, but just below the surface---that "another Pearl Harbor" would be as much an opportunity as a disaster. How else to wake up those who aren't sufficiently afraid?