With Prime Minister Blair on his way out and President Bush on his way down, some folks think that pretty soon we can get back to business as usual in international affairs.
Not so, writes Janet Daley.
Maybe it was OK back in the Cold War that “We kept our sons-of-bitches under control and they kept their sons-of-bitches under control.” But now it is the sons-of-bitches that are the problem. And they insist that we pay attention to them.
It is the little dictators and the rogue states, with their access to nuclear weapons and their terrorist networks, who are the threat now.
So after Bush and Blair are gone we will still have to deal with the sons-of-bitches.
What really went wrong in Iraq was a failure of the US to grasp that not everyone would seize the gift of freedom with both hands and make it work...
...
[Americans] just don't get it when nations, given the choice, opt for dictatorship, theocracy or the tribalism of warlords.
That is where Europe comes in, Daley advises. Europeans understand about “ancient hatreds and peoples who fear liberty.” But so far, except for Tony Blair, the Europeans haven’t stepped up to the plate. They have prefered to barrack from the sidelines. So what is the answer?
In the West, we have learned how to eradicate mass starvation and gross inequality. There is no mystery: the answer is liberal democratic government and free market economics.
In the future the United States is going to need some help from its friends in the effort to export this answer to the oppressed peoples of the world.
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