Perilous Crusades

Joshua muravchik’s treatise calling for America to fulfill its destiny by “exporting democracy” has added fuel to the spirited debate over America’s purpose in the post-cold-war era. The continuing ambiguity of U.S. policy in Iraq has further sharpened the question of what America should do in other people’s countries. (What, if anything, should Washington do to depose Saddam Hussein or to establish an autonomous Kurdish state?) The debate is not new. It is rooted in the protracted dispute between interventionists and non-interventionists, “idealists” and “realists,” and combinations of these slippery camps, each claiming a harmonious blend of reaHsm and the American dream.

Muravchik presents a clear and detailed case for an updated Wilsonian vision. He believes that America should export democracy all over the Eurasian land mass and to the uttermost parts of the earth, and that this mission will serve our national interests and fulfill our moral destiny. He believes that a world hungering for freedom is ripe for democracy. “Democracy in China and the USSR may not be easy to achieve, but it is not much more farfetched than the idea of democracy in India or Japan had been at one time.” In blunt fact, it is much more farfetched. India had a century and a half of British rule and Japan had Douglas MacArthur.

EL

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Ernest Lefever

Joshua muravchik’s treatise calling for America to fulfill its destiny by “exporting democracy” has added fuel to the spirited debate over America’s purpose in the post-cold-war era. The continuing ambiguity of U.S. policy in Iraq has further sharpened the question of what America should do in other people’s countries. (What, if anything, should Washington do to depose Saddam Hussein or to establish an autonomous Kurdish state?) The debate is not new. It is rooted in the protracted dispute between interventionists and non-interventionists, “idealists” and “realists,” and combinations of these slippery camps, each claiming a harmonious blend of reaHsm and the American dream.

Muravchik presents a clear and detailed case for an updated Wilsonian vision. He believes that America should export democracy all over the Eurasian land mass and to the uttermost parts of the earth, and that this mission will serve our national interests and fulfill our moral destiny. He believes that a world hungering for freedom is ripe for democracy. “Democracy in China and the USSR may not be easy to achieve, but it is not much more farfetched than the idea of democracy in India or Japan had been at one time.” In blunt fact, it is much more farfetched. India had a century and a half of British rule and Japan had Douglas MacArthur.