"Day of Reckoning", by Pat Buchanan

In this book, published in 2007, Buchanan expounds on the themes he has explored in his other books, like "A Republic, Not an Empire" (1999), "The Death of the West" (2002), "Where the Right Went Wrong" (2004), "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War" (2008), and "Suicide of a Superpower" (2011).

"Day of Reckoning" is Buchanan's resposne to Geroge W. Bush's war on Iraq, which Buchanan considers the greatest blunder in United States history. In fact, Buchanan felt so strogly about this that in 2002 he launched a new magazine, "The American Conservative", dedicated to opposing the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The main concept Buchanan explores is the idea of ideology. He examines Bush's speeches after 9/11, and concludes that Bush became consumed by ideology, making statements lie "moral truth is the same in every culture i every time, and in every place", "the requirements of freedom apply fully to the true Islamic world", and "We are in conflict between good and evil, and America will call evil by its name". Bush became consumed by his dsire to overthrow Iraq's ruling regime, and substitute a democratic state in its place. Buchanan calls this the use of ideology to justify war as nothing more than "war propaganda".

Buchanan says that "ideology really means poitical fanaticism". He examines past U.S. wars, and concludes that couching our justification for involvement in ideological terms was, in every caase, an after-the-fact justification for wars which were entered into out of nationl interests.

Applying Buchanan's principles to the current Israel-Hamas war, it can be easily seen that Isael is making a big mistake in invading the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu is couching it in terms of "fighting against evil", which it surely is, but to justify war on that basis is wrong. We also see tht Netanyahu, like Bush, is ignoring the Pottery Barn Rule, which says that "if you broke it, you bought it". Who is going to run the Gaza Strip when Hamas is destroyed? Another similarity is that by waging war on Muslims, you are simply creating more future terrorists. In referring to Islamic terrorists, Buchanan likes to say that "they're over here because we're over there". Hamas might be destroyed, but so what? Another group will be formed in its place. Then there is the problem of innocent civilians being killed.