REALITY HASN'T CAUGHT UP TO REALISM JUST YET:

Freedom From Fear: Sharansky brings moral clarity to another fight (Gary Rosen, Newsweek International)

One of the more curious leaks from the White House right after the election was word that U.S. President George W. Bush had been reading a book. Notable in itself—the president isn't exactly a bookworm—the story was made still more interesting by the fact that the work in question was "The Case for Democracy" (PublicAffairs. 303 pages) by Natan Sharansky, who had even been summoned to the Oval Office for a chat. Supporters of Bush's policies in the Middle East took heart from this bit of news, while critics found yet another reason to grind their teeth. Sharansky's message, as he declares in his subtitle: "The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny & Terror." [...]

In Sharansky's view, today's debate over how to deal with Arab and Islamic extremism is a replay of familiar cold-war disputes. Indeed, some of his most pointed barbs are saved for foreign-policy "realists," especially the architects of detente with the Soviet Union (Henry Kissinger, he relates with some glee, was the accused in a mock trial Sharansky once staged among dissident friends in Moscow). Today, too, he argues, the leading lights of the Western foreign-policy establishment fail to see that mere stability is not a high enough goal in confronting dangerous ideological foes. For our safety, to say nothing of our integrity, we must call oppression by its proper name and raise the banner of democratic reform.

What Sharansky (like Bush) calls "moral clarity" in foreign policy may not be as lacking as he suggests. Old-school realism, with its exasperating indifference to the internal character of regimes, has lost much of its credibility in the wake of the Soviet collapse and the attacks of 9/11.

How quickly we forget, Kerry Says Security Comes First: Less Emphasis on Democracy Abroad (Glenn Kessler, 5, 29/04, Washington Post)

Sen. John F. Kerry indicated that as president he would play down the promotion of democracy as a leading goal in dealing with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China and Russia, instead focusing on other objectives that he said are more central to the United States' security. [...]

In many ways, Kerry laid out a foreign policy agenda that appeared less idealistic about U.S. aims than those of President Bush or even fellow Democrat Bill Clinton.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 14, 2004 11:52 PM