Earlier this morning I heard an antiwar protester on the radio say that he’s afraid “nobody’s listening.” I assume he meant that no one with the power to stop this war is listening, which is true. But when the war starts this week, that qualification will no longer apply: no one -- certainly no one in America -- will be paying attention to what we’re saying. We'll have nothing but pro-war, rally-round-the-flag news coverage, and most Americans -- even most people who now have anxieties about war -- will find that appropriate.

The very things we’ve said could happen if there’s a war rather than continued containment and deterrence -- a chem or bio attack on U.S. troops that may also catch Iraqi civilians in its net, a widening of the war to Israel, destruction of oil fields -- will be described not as reasons war was a bad idea but as proof that Saddam was evil and war was necessary. Increased al-Qaeda terrorism or an escalation of saber-rattling by a back-burnered North Korea will be seen as a sign that the world is a dangerous place and it’s a good thing we’re getting rid of one evildoer, at least, before he can threaten Main Street. In the course of the war, no one will notice any chem or bio weapons that slip out of Iraq to augment arsenals elsewhere in the world. And the American press will consider any discussion of civilian casualties caused by U.S. bombing of Iraq, or destruction of infrastructure there, unpatriotic and a turnoff to American audiences.

After the war, of course, the American press will turn its attention elsewhere very quickly; if conditions in Iraq deteriorate in a year or two, most Americans simply won’t notice. Any destabilization elsewhere in the Arab/Muslim world will be regarded as confirmation of the Bush administration’s worldview, not of ours.

What I’m saying is that, in this debate we’ve been having, there aren’t just two possible outcomes -- the facts vindicate us or the facts vindicate the pro-war side. There’s a third possibility, one that seems much more likely to me: that perceptions will seem to vindicate the pro-war side, at least in the eyes of the vast majority of Americans, while reality, more or less unnoticed, tends to vindicate us.