Unfortunately, I’m now having trouble tracking down the specific comment, but someone asked the other day with regard to Heads in the Sand what’s the difference between liberal international and just “imperial adventures I approve of.” That’s an important question, because I do think some liberals basically see it that way.

But the difference that I see (and this is in no way an original-to-me idea) has to do with legitimacy and institutions. One alternative to an imperial conception of America’s role in the world would be to adopt a “mind our own business” posture. The liberal alternative rejects this, but also rejects the idea that the purpose of our engagement with the world should be to try to come out as top dog in an endless struggle. Instead, it seems international conflict as negative sum and international cooperation as positive sum. With that understanding, liberals seek to build and strengthen institutions that facilitate cooperation and offer less-destructive means of resolving conflicts.

Liberal internationalist willingness to use force abroad should, following the above, be constrained by ideas about legitimacy. The currently prevailing ideology in the United States holds that, in essence, we have a right to use force unilaterally against countries whose WMD or human rights policies we don’t like, but no other country has this right and we have no need to apply the same standard to different countries. The liberal sees that this is incoherent and unworkable, and though agreeing that the United States rightly concerns itself with WMD and human rights issues in foreign countries, thinks these need to be dealt with through some kind of reasonable legal, procedural, and institutional frameworks — the U.N. Security Council, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the IAEA, etc., etc., — and that flaws in these frameworks should be dealt with through good-faith efforts to improve the frameworks rather than to cast them aside. The general idea is that American power should be used in way that’s sustainable rather than threatening to the rest of the world, because it gives adequate deference to the fact that other countries have their own interests and perspectives.

Of course these ideas don’t fully specify a foreign policy — the Security Council could authorize something foolish or impractical and existing rules and institutions are often in need of change of one kind or another. But it does generate a framework within which to think about this. We want and need to be involved in the problems of the world, but wish to do so in a constructive, legitimate manner that involves working with other countries according to the established rules of the game as laid out in treaties, etc. rather than fooling ourselves into thinking that if we cast off all restraint we’ll be able to remake the world with ease.

Photo by Flickr user etobicokesouth used under a Creative Commons license

Justin Logan notes that the “McCain’s no neocon” theory is a bit hard to square with the fact that McCain also blurbed Robert Kagan’s book. It’s true that Kagan (this Kagan!) is the neocon writer who’s most likely to garner praise from non-neos, but he’s still very much a true believer in that approach to foreign policy and the McCain blurb reflects how deeply enmeshed McCain is with that circle of thinkers.

I think Ross Douthat makes many good points in response to Robert Kagan’s “Neocon Nation” but let me remark at greater length on the problem Ross identifies and then passes over lightly in favor of a different problem:

The first is the broadness of its argument, which elides the fact that those “variations” within the interventionist camp can be very significant indeed, and that the shared belief in “American power and the ability of the United States to use that power to beneficial ends in the world” is for many critics of neoconservatism the beginning of the argument, rather than the end of it.

I think this is what comes of dwelling too long in rhetorical foxholes alongside people who accuse their political opponents of holding “anti-American” views. Obviously, the vast majority of Americans are going to believe that American power ought to be used to beneficial ends in the world. It would be bizarre, after all, to hold a self-conscious believe that American power ought to be used for malign ends. That’s just human psychology, not a fact about our political culture or our foreign policy. The whole game is in answering questions like what kind of power? what kind of uses? which ends are beneficial? Adolf Hitler and Angela Merkel both believe that Germany, as Europe’s largest nation, ought to play a significent role in the affairs of the continent and this tells us nothing at all about either of them or their policies.

Some people believe that things like invading Iraq will help secure beneficial ends. Others believe that a defensively-oriented military posture combined with an economy open to foreign goods and immigrants will best secure beneficial ends. Some think the United States ought to secure beneficial ends by working to strengthen and uphold international institutions and laws, whereas others regard these institutions as tools of the week designed to prevented us from bringing the beneficence of unilateral hegemony to the world. This is the entire content of our foreign policy debate.

For neocons to stand amidst the wreckage that their ideas have wrought vaguely muttered that everyone who believes that it’s good to do good stuff really agrees with them is a little absurd.

To wend a bit of a middle path between Messrs. Klein and Chait, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for an American president to say that he wouldn’t have any diplomatic talks with Hamas as long as that’s Israel’s position as well — after all, what would they talk about? Hamas can’t make concessions to the United States nor is there much of anything the United States would concede to Hamas. So in that sense, Barack Obama’s refusal to expand his generous meetings policy to Hamas is both defensible policy and a good cheap talk way of saying something that “pro-Israel” folks like.

The more meaningful question facing an American administration would be what kind of counsel/pressure/whatever they give to the government of Israel regarding holding talks with Hamas. The Bush administration, in line with their general approach to the world, has always signaled unconditional support for Israel’s preconditions for dealing with Hamas, even though it was the Bush administration that engineered Hamas’ rise to power. It seems to me that the reasons it’s smart for the U.S. to, as Obama suggests, negotiate in a meaningful way with countries like Syria and Iran are roughly the same as the reasons why it would be smart for Israel to negotiate with Hamas without preconditions. Whether or not Obama agrees with that or communicates those sentiments to the Israelis is the more substantial issue.

Graeme Wood argues in a Current that it probably takes a little lawlessness and anarchy to make an imperial outpost like the Green Zone and its associated supply lines and protective networks function. I’m not at all certain that Graeme would agree, but this has long been part of the traditional case that empire abroad will undermine the idea of a democratic republic at home. The corruption and sexual violence that’s the subject of his piece is part of that, and the emergence of an active duty theater commander as one of the top GOP surrogates in an election year should probably be seen as another part.

All this is, further, related to things like the Bush administration’s funny-business with the looming status of forces agreement with Iraq. The administration claims that it’s not customary to submit a SOFA for congressional approval, so they’re free to conclude it as an executive agreement. That seems plausible, perhaps, until you consider that this is hardly the same as a peacetime SOFA — following the expiration of the controlling U.N. resolution at the end of the year, the SOFA will be the only legal basis for the continued presence of American forces in the middle of a war zone. And while lots of folks on the Hill are complaining about this, everybody thinks that he will, in practice, be able to get away with it. After all, it’s become an entrenched precept of U.S. politico-media culture that any failure of congress to pony up the funds necessary for the president to do whatever he wants constitutes an abandonment of “the troops.” This turns the constitutional scheme on its head, but it’s where we’ve come to, and the trend certainly didn’t start with George W. Bush.

I don’t have any strong objections to the idea of extending the US “nuclear umbrella” to protect Israel in case of an Iranian nuclear attack, but Charles Krauthammer is aware that Israel already has its own nuclear arsenal, right? I assume that an Israeli threat of a nuclear second strike is going to be a good deal more credible than anything a third party could offer. This is, after all, presumably why Israel went through the trouble of building the nukes.

It’s interesting to learn that investors seem to be rushing to buy Iraqi debt and the risk premium is declining even though “the central government could face challenges from the rising influence of provincial rulers.” Certainly I look forward to when rescuing holders of Iraqi bonds from default becomes the rationale for why we can’t leave Iraq.

Noah Millman sketches out a scenario in which John McCain, like Ariel Sharon, upon being confronted with the burdens of office tempers his views in a more pragmatic direction and surprises people. It definitely could happen. Heck, maybe McCain could be the Nixon who goes to Teheran. But as Millman says it’s “a fairly audacious hope, given how McCain has positioned himself over the past decade.”

And, indeed, while there’s a general unpredictability about these things the safest assumption seems to me to be that McCain roughly believes what he’s been saying all this time. It’s not as if he’s a guy with a lifelong passion for economic policy who started imitating Bush’s lines when he decided to run for President. He’s in the military, then he’s dispatched by the military to represent their interests in congress, then he’s a member of congress and senator himself who’s always been interested in military issues who was “talking like Bush” before Bush was talking like Bush. In other words, he’s probably thought this all through and if he wins intends to govern accordingly. Maybe not. We can have hope. But I wouldn’t count on him reversing course.

Mark Krikorian proposes a novel argument for keeping the Mexicans out — their grandchildren might be insufficiently supportive of Israel. His Corner colleague John J. Miller’s not buying it but does dub it “creative.” I’ll agree with that.

When Michael O’Hanlon sneezes, the resulting mucous becomes two op-eds in prominent newspapers. Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, and Robert Kagan are all regular columnists. But when CAP’s Brian Katulis and Matt Duss want to bring some facts into the discussion it winds up in The Baltimore Sun. Fortuately, thanks to the magic of the internet, a Sun article can be read anywhere. Let’s hope it is:

Speaking before Congress, General Petraeus said, “Iran has fueled the violence in a particularly damaging way through its lethal support to the special groups,” referring to Shiite splinter groups allegedly receiving support from Iran. According to the general, the recent clashes between Shiite groups stretching from Basra in the south all the way to Baghdad “highlighted the destructive role Iran has played in funding, training, arming, and directing the so-called special groups.”

Conservatives such as Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, have latched on to this incomplete description of the ongoing intra-Shiite struggles in Iraq as the latest reason why our over- stretched military forces must remain in Iraq. [...]

These depictions ignore an inconvenient truth: The leaders in Iraq’s current government are closely aligned with Tehran and represent some of Iran’s closest allies in Iraq. This is perhaps best illustrated by the warm welcome Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad received in his visit to Iraq last month, which punctures the myth that the current battle is between a unified Iraqi government and fringe groups receiving support from Iran.

But we need resolve or else people get bolder!