THE STAKES:

Why Do They Hate Us? (Ilya Shapiro, 03/23/2004, Tech Central Station)

In the end, anti-Americanism boils down to the timeless disgust with America's daring to export its idea of liberty to the four corners of the globe. Whether via gunboat diplomacy, realpolitik, humanitarian intervention, or the current blend of preemptive strikes and trade liberalization -- despite intermittent rollbacks at the behest of groaning industrial-age unions and its John Edwards demagogues -- it is anathema to the Old World mind (and its Rousseauean influence in the New World) that a nation would choose to pursue other than parochial mercantilist interests. This is why French companies violated the sanctions against post-Gulf War Iraq while the chattering class decried the Yankee drive to trade blood for oil. It is why Vladimir Putin is a supposedly faithful partner in the war against Islamic terrorism while selling nuclear reactors to Iran. And it is the reason that, unfortunately, Europeans consider the United States to be the second-most dangerous country in the world -- second only to the sole democracy in the Middle East.

To oversimplify the point, Europeans (like New Yorkers) are cynical, and cannot comprehend the "shining city upon a hill." They can't help it; their Enlightenment was essentially French and positivistic, rather than Scottish and natural law-oriented. Still, it is amusing to observe the simultaneous attacks on America from what roughly corresponds to the political left and right, for being an insufficient promoter of "social justice" while reveling too much in proletarian culture. Such is the paradox of this irrational anti-Americanism.

This, in a nutshell, is the radicalism of George W. Bush, though it is implicit in our Founding and played out in much of our history--and all of our wars--since. It is, in essence, the application of Judeo-Christian principles to foreign policy--requiring us to intervene in places like the Middle East not because any particular interest of ours will be advanced but because they are our neighbors, because they too are Created and have inalienable rights, and because we are obligated to love them. Presidents from Lincoln to Reagan have found that the nation can be rallied to such causes when sufficiently provoked, but that it is difficult to sustain such an inherently selfless crusade for long. President Bush then is taking a considerable risk when he says:

This nation is prosperous and strong, yet we need to remember the sources of America's greatness. We're strong because we love freedom. America has a special charge to keep, because we are freedom's home and defender. We believe that freedom is the deepest need and hope of every human heart. We believe that freedom is the future of every nation, and we know that freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is the Almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world.

and tries to make this faith the cornerstone of our foreign policy.

If he fails to convince people that this ambition is worthwhile, they'll gladly dump him and turn to John Kerry, who they think will restore our more typical isolationist posture. But if President Bush can drag a wisely reluctant citizenry along behind him, he will become one of the most important figures in human history. That sounds like a mouthful, no? But just imagine five more years (or 9 or 13 or 17 or however many succeeding administrations it takes) of constant pressure on the globe's most dysfunctional polities and what kind of salutary effect it could have.

Mind--we needn't turn the whole Islamic world and the few Communist remnants and the various other dictatorships into mini-Americas in that time. All we need do is get them firmly on the path that leads to the End of History and give them a shove. That in itself would be epochal.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 23, 2004 11:27 PM