GLOBAL VISION

At a bleak moment like this, I really do wish Robert Kagan could be made some sort of roving ambassador for the US. He talks like a man who has spent time out in the real world. We don't hear enough from him. Here he is in the FT:

Americans do pursue their selfish interests and ambitions, sometimes brutally, as other nations have throughout history. Nor are they innocent of hypocrisy, masking selfishness behind claims of virtue. But Americans have always had this unique spur to global involvement, an ideological righteousness that inclines them to meddle in the affairs of others, to seek change, to insist on imposing their avowed "universal principles" usually through peaceful pressures but sometimes through war.

This enduring tradition has led Americans into some disasters where they have done more harm than good, and into triumphs where they have done more good than harm. These days, this conviction is strangely called "neo-conservatism", but there is nothing "neo" and certainly nothing conservative about it.

He'll be answering questions on Tuesday. You can post yours now.

PS: His brother, Fred, is exceedingly unenthusiastic about the Hamilton-Baker recommendations:

The report basically punts on the most important issue of the day--establishing security in Iraq. All of the pious exhortations to get Iraqis to sit down with one another, to engage Iran and Syria and to find political compromises are meaningless if we are unable to stem the tide of bloodshed that now engulfs much of Baghdad and Anbar province.

Comments

[dearieme]

"if we are unable to stem the tide of bloodshed": what if the Americans are now unable to achieve any purpose whatever - if they are ineffective witnesses to a chain reaction of slaughter? What if only the jihadis care about the Americans any more? What if the Americans left and almost no-one there paid a blind bit of notice?