What the hell is happening to liberalism?

I see (via TKS) that Matt Yglesias is putting on his realist hat to poo-poo the possibility that Lebanon might actually become a democracy. He writes ” I feel like there are a few skeptical notes that ought to be sounded here. One is that, near as I can tell, there’s no really clear sense in which the Syrian sphere of influence in Lebanon is bad for the United States of America. [Emphasis his!]

First, “sphere of influence” is an awfully nice Orwellian way to describe thousands of troops and intelligence operatives who maintain a climate of fear as they bilk Lebanon of its wealth and mock its sovereignty.

Second, I think you could make all sorts of realist arguments about why it’s in America’s interest that Lebanon becomes a major domino in the falling chain of dominos leading toward liberty and prosperity for hundreds of millions of Arabs. Economic growth in the region (and the world), friendlier regimes, an exit strategy for our unpopular-but-necessary support for Israel: all of these things show up on my list (Jim has others).

But that’s not the point. Since when are liberals supposed to make “let ‘em rot” arguments about people living under the yoke of tyrrannical regimes? In a way, I suppose, Yglesias sounds a bit like the Cold War lefties who insisted the Czechs, Poles, East Germans et al. had things pretty good under the Soviets so why should we care so much about “captive nations” and all that. But whether the analogy holds or not, Yglesias really does seem to be expressing what can reasonably be called a new liberal America-firstism (in fairness to historical accuracy we should note that many liberals were America Firsters the first time around too). When some conservatives in the 1990s expressed skepticism about Clinton’s adventures in Bosnia and Haiti they were called “isolationists.” I guess now similar sentiments about the most exciting liberal (properly understood) project since the end of the Communism are simply the stuff of enlightened “liberals.” I wish they’d hurry up and switch their label back to “progressives” already so it would be easier to describe these illiberal liberals.