What Makes Us Want War?

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http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/what-makes-us-want-war/279290/


Protester Ashraf El-Bayoumi shouts against a military strike against Syria outside the White House on August 29, 2013. (Reuters)

As Congress debates the case for intervening in Syria this week, most Americans still oppose taking action, telling reporters cynical, pithy things like:

"Every time we get involved in somebody else's mess, we just get deeper in debt and nothing happens. They go right back to being just exactly as they've been for 200 years," said Dolly Benson, 71, of Romance, Arkansas.

Last week my colleague Garance Franke-Ruta explained why Americans have gradually become less eager to engage in foreign conflicts since 9/11, including factors like reduced optimism for the Arab Spring and less outrage over chemical weapons.

But beyond this surprising turnaround in American sentiment, it’s interesting to see that the Syria issue has created some unusual bedfellows: staunch libertarians and anti-war Democrats; the French and the U.S.; the Turks and the Kurds.