Civil war demands civility

In the United States, the blast that triggered the Civil War happened at Fort Sumter. Today, the world holds its breath that history will not say the same about the blast that leveled the Golden Dome mosque in Iraq, a religious shrine that has been holy to Shiites for more than a millennium.

The United States military continues to report that things are not as bad as they look. But versions of events from the area are hard to sort. The U.S. ambassador is sounding a hopeful note that the fabric of democracy is holding. And cooler heads on both the Shiite and Sunni sides are asking for an end to the violence.

On the other hand, if things are even half as bad as they appear, the bombing has been a jolt to the goals of the United States and the ambitions of forward-looking Iraqis.

The Bush administration is couching the bombing as a ploy by terrorists to create distrust and anger among the nation's factions. Sadly, the nation's factions have been caught up in so much distrust and anger that they can't hear the president's voice. Again, the W.B. Yeats poem "Second Coming" comes to mind. The fear is the "center will not hold" and things will "fly apart." The falcon seems to be drifting beyond the voice of the falconer.

We urge what we have urged since the day of the first incursion into Iraq. We urge steadiness, cool heads and a willingness to stay focussed on the long view. For the chattering classes, the situation drips with irony. A nation that struggles mightily to keep church and state separated is trying to foster democracy in a land that struggles mightily to keep them linked together. Yet even the most brilliant journalistic minds are having a hard time making sense of things.

Amid the jumbled reports — "the Iraqi security forces are caving in," "the Iraqi security forces are holding firm" — what the situation doesn't need is another dose of passion. The situation needs America to be America — to fly the flag of its values: optimism, an unbending belief in freedom, a willingness to absorb a blow from a foe and return it with double the resolve.

In the American Civil War, the side that had to win eventually won. But it took the patience of Job and the strength of Sampson to get the job done. Iraq may be half a world away, but those same qualities are being called on again. And again, the nation has no choice but to deliver them.