Goodness, Jonah, there’s a lot to address there, but, yes, I agree, national interest can certainly be more than a matter of materialistic gain. At the same time, when it comes to those “hard” realists (to use your term), and their “creepily” materialistic view of national interest, we should give thanks for them. Man is, as you say, an irrational creature and, in the state, he has created a device of great and, more often than not, lethal power. As a general rule, therefore, the more narrowly the state’s external ambitions are defined, the better. That’s the lesson of history. Sadly, as history demonstrates (and our primate psychology ensures) that lesson will usually be ignored. Donald Kagan, I fear, loses me. He invents an imaginary prejudice (“the notion that only economic benefits, power and security are rational goals is a prejudice of our time”) and creates a false dichotomy (by suggesting that “human feelings, motives, and will” are somehow immune from scientific analysis. They are not.) Moving on, you then offer up a straw realist, a dunderhead who believes “governments to be purer than the people they represent.” Well, if there are any people like that, we can both agree that they are anything but realist. Your word “Utopian” will do just fine. The Kurds and the Shia: You say that we abandoned the Kurds and the Shia in 1991 in the name of Realpolitik. Actually, no, we abandoned the Shia (we protected the Kurds, at least to a degree) for a mixture of reasons, not the least of which was the belief that we (and, remember, that much of the Gulf War coalition would have melted away) would not have been able to handle what might have been unleashed as a result. There are some who would say that the experience of the last four years would show that was true. We’ll never know. In a way, however, this is all something of an irrelevance. It’s rare that Realpolitik will throw up one, “right” answer. I could have made a case (and would have done, had anyone asked me) based on Realpolitik that the Coalition should have gone on to Baghdad. If they had done, and if it had worked (two big ifs), not only would a dangerous opponent have been overthrown, but a humanitarian disaster would have been averted. The Coalition would have done good by doing well, an ideal state of affairs. The global perception of being a ‘moral’ nation? I think that rather depends on the morality that is being peddled, and to whom. Even if we confine ourselves to the US, I think that an argument can be made that in the Wilson and Carter years the perception of US ‘morality’ was, at least in terms of Realpolitik, damaging. What the US does have in many parts of the world, and deservedly so, is a reputation as a nation that, with some notable exceptions, generally exercises its power in a manner that is both restrained and benign. Is that valuable? Of course. And is that a reflection of the very nature of America itself, rather than a self-conscious projection of morality? In my view, yes. Finally, you say that “doing the right thing where you can is always defensible,” a statement that rather begs the question as to what “right” is. And that, of course, is, in a way, where we started this whole discussion….