Novus Ordo Seclorum

That Latin phrase, Novus Ordo Seclorum, appears on the back of the one dollar bill. Meaning "New World Order," it reflects the belief of the founders of the United States of America that their new nation put the world on a unprecedented and vital track.

Today, we hear echoes of Novus Ordo Seclorum in speechifying about what we are doing in the Middle East, in Iraq; in Afghanistan; and in the war against terrorism. President Bush the Father said his Gulf War coalition against Saddam Hussein reflected "a new world order," remember?

Connecting the affairs of one country, ours, with the order of the entire world is nothing new. It is the basis for American "exceptionalism." And that idea, our exceptionalism, is one of the major (if often unstated) bones of contention between those who support the war in Iraq and those who oppose it.

In fact, I think it is the decisive bone of contention.

I say this because I think no war could ever be more "faith-based" than this one in Iraq. What else can we say about a war whose two ostensible rationales, weapons of mass destruction and secret support by Iraq for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, turned out to be bogus? Whose author, President Bush the Son, switched by the time of his second inaugural to justifying his signature war in furtherance of world democracy? Whose supporters' "arguments" generally devolve upon lambasting opponents' patriotic resolve?

Not that the antiwar "arguments" are all that compelling. If you were asked to name one American who (a) holds any truly important elected office and (b) has spoken out unequivocally against the war, you'd be hard put to come up with one. Yes, we hear chafing about the war being "open-ended," with no terminus in sight. War opponents never tire of citing how many of our brave young men and women have died or been wounded to date. And when the insurgency in Iraq heats up, they're the first to wail and gnash their teeth. But as far as calling clearly and simply for our troops to come home now, we don't even get that from Howard Dean any more — if we ever did.

We hear from hawks that the Iraq war is really a chapter in the longer war on terror ... but without any real proof. From doves, we hear just the opposite, that there's no connection whatever ... again, without any real proof.

We hear from doves that the Afghanistan initiative was as justified as the Iraq one was not ... but we hear very little from doves or hawks about why we are still there.

There's considerable hand-wringing among doves over atrocities at Abu Ghraib and "Gitmo," while Administration hawks seem distressingly nonchalant. Meanwhile, neither side has done or said anything substantial to end the atrocities.

It's as if everybody's tongues are powerless to speak the whole truth. It's as if the whole truth cannot be spoken because it has not yet emerged. It's as if Bush's initiatives in Iraq and elsewhere are based 100% on faith in what that whole truth will be, when it finally does arrive.


So, yes, I've changed my mind about Iraq. I think Bush will be proven right. I say this as one whose instincts are profoundly dovish, as one who opposed the first Gulf War ... until we won it, that is. I was against the Vietnam War, back in the day. There hasn't been an American military action since I was knee-high to a grasshopper that I could get behind.

This one feels different. This one is so faith-based, it almost has to succeed.

As I have tried to make clear (see The Moral Arc of the Universe), I believe there is a heart-reality beneath our everyday eyes-reality. It is what arcs the cosmos, at the end of the day, toward justice. For the nonce, it is but a latency which we, acting at our most heroic, can help make true. Until it does come true, this heart-reality doesn't make a lot of sense ... except, of course, to our foolish hearts.

I believe the Bush war in Iraq, along with the other prime inititiaves on the world stage by which his administration will be judged, are heart-guided. They can't be justified by reason alone. They do not — for example, take the case of Iraq — always conform to the traditional Roman Catholic strictures for a just war.

In fact, I think it grows increasingly clear that those traditional strictures no longer serve. If only because this is not a declared war, and there may well never be another decleared American war, we have to redraw the guidelines.

A new, emergent world order — that is what we await today. One superpower, us, is acting exceptionally. Boldly, it is going against received, conventional wisdom to sow democracy where skeptics say it cannot grow. As it does so, it is generating "new world order" all the while.

American liberals and doves don't get it — or, if they get it, they don't like it. For them, the whole idea of American exceptionalism is bogus. No underlying heart-reality, no buried template of cosmic justice, requires this nation to act any differently from France or Switzerland, if that latent reality is to be brought to the surface.

I don't buy that. I think our nation's history is imbued with exceptionality. I think we have a special role to play, a heart-guided one that can't be pinned down by rules of the head.

Admittedly, I don't have all the answers to questions like, if that is so, what is to rein us in? How do we know as a body politic what is right, good, proper, and in accordance with the world's hidden heart-reality? Can Bush do no wrong?

No, I don't believe Bush can do no wrong. Make no mistake about that. But neither do I believe that the liberal shibboleths we hear today can guide us to the new world order I think God wants this country to usher in.


Though I say I've changed my mind, I have been edging toward this view for quite some time. It's mostly been a matter of some inchoate inner voice nagging at me, telling me to look beyond all the obvious reasons why this war is so seemingly without justification.

I have never felt comfortable — and still don't — with what Bush's neo-conservative minions say in support of their war, a litany of assertions which don't add up. In fact, it is the lack of real coherence in their official stances and positions which convinces me they are acting as much from faith as anything else. It's an "I know it's right, but I can't really say why" attitude that they convey, and I know it maddens liberals for just that reason.

But neither do I feel all warm and fuzzy about liberals' approach to this situation, to the sketchy extent that they have actually set one forth. Mostly all they say is "Bush was wrong to do this" and "Bush is misguided to do that."

It's as if both sides' base assumptions are inadequate to the new reality, which is bigger than the both of them. At least the Bush side is feeling its way along, meeting the situation that develops as best it can. When the history of all this is written, I expect Bush will in retrospect be congratulated for hewing as faithfully to his worldview as President Reagan did in standing up to the Soviet Union, precipitating its collapse. Remember how foolish Reagan looked to us liberals at the time?