LONDON: In 1915, a grim year in European history, an eminent German social scientist named Werner Sombart published a remarkably well written piece of German war propaganda, entitled Merchants and Heroes. Sombart’s thesis was that the world conflict was not just a war between nations, but between two “world views”, or Weltanschauungen.

On one side were the nations of mediocre shopkeepers, the democracies of grasping merchants, the materialist civilisation of timid burghers, interested only in making money and the gratification of private desires. On the other was the land of heroes, philosophers and soldiers, prepared to sacrifice themselves for higher ideals, and contemptuous of bourgeois creature comforts.

England, naturally, represented the former, and Germany the latter. The idea was not especially new. Napoleon had already sneered about English shopkeepers.

There is, none the less, something about the idea that citizens of trading democracies need more persuasion to lay their lives on the line than the subjects of absolute monarchies or military dictatorships. Indeed, the latter don’t need to be persuaded at all; they need to follow orders. On the whole, appeasement of potential aggressors comes more naturally to liberal states. Wars are a last resort, fought in self-defence. Democracies did fight colonial wars, to be sure, but they were far away and often taken care of by proxies, or plebeian hooligans of whom the home countries were happy to be rid.

The United States has not been much different from the Old World democracies. American governments have, on the whole, been quite reluctant to send their own boys to war. It took Pearl Harbour to get them into the last big one.

How, then, are we to judge the projected war with Iraq, on the merits of which all of us, and especially those of us who write for the press, are supposed to have a clear-cut opinion? What category offers the closest fit? Is it about trade? This is not the official line in Washington DC, but there are theories going around suggesting that it is. It’s said that Saudi Arabia is no longer seen as a reliable ally and source of oil. It would be better for business if Iraq, under a more sympathetic government, were to be the main supplier of oil.

Although no doubt true, this is unlikely to be the only, or perhaps even main, motive for waging a war. Is it a war of self-defence? This is the official line in Washington, but, alas, not the most convincing one. There is no real casus belli. Saddam Hussein, so far, has done little to indicate that he is about to attack the US.

So is it to be an imperial war? It might look that way, especially to many readers of this paper. But if the US is indeed in many respects like an imperial power, it is a very odd one, for, especially since the debacle in Vietnam, the Americans have shown a marked reluctance to stick around anywhere long enough to see to their imperial affairs. And this may be the main problem with a war in Iraq. If they are serious about a “regime change” in Baghdad, they will have to stay there until its successful conclusion. But “nation building” is precisely what Bush always said he wanted to avoid.

The very idea of regime change suggests a type of war that the Old World powers almost never thought of fighting: a revolutionary war. In the mid-19th century, European revolutionaries dearly wanted the British to help them topple monarchies all over the continent. British disinterest in doing so was criticized precisely on the lines of Sombart’s propaganda tract: the British were too selfish and hungry for profit to be swayed by higher ideals.

America, like the French republic, was born of a revolution, and its rhetoric in international affairs is often idealistic. In fact, however, the US hardly ever went in for revolutionary wars either. The exception was in the Philippines, when the US helped Filipinos get rid of their Spanish overlords, but only to take over as the new colonial power themselves.

The cobbled-together Iraqi opposition in exile has now been assured by Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld that a democratic revolution in Iraq will be fully backed by the US. This sounds very fine. But how long is the US prepared to stay in Iraq to see it through? Too long, and they will be running a colony, as they did in the Philippines. Too short, and the whole thing is likely to collapse in bloody chaos. Without a better idea about US intentions, a democratic citizen surely would be foolish to plump for going to war.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.