It is not the conservative psyche that needs analysis. Conservatives were right in the Cold War --so right that liberals are pretending they were with us all along -- and they are right about Iraq. It is Leftists who need to account for their consistently disgraceful positions throughout the Cold War and into the War on Terror.
I have read that the secret of gallantry is to accept the pleasures of life leisurely, and its inconveniences with a shrug; as well as that, among other requisites, the gallant person will always consider the world with a smile of toleration, and his own doings with a smile of honest amusement, and Heaven with a smile which is not distrustful — being thoroughly persuaded that God is kindlier than the genteel would regard as rational.