An article on how foreign policy will be key in 2008.  I largely agree with the analysis which boils down to Democrats wanting to focus on Iraq and Republicans focusing on taking on al-Qaeda.   Another key point here is that none of the major candidates from either side seem to be willing to openly advocate any portion of the so-called Bush Doctrine, at least regarding the spread of democracy.  This is a potential shame.  While democracy at the barrel of a gun and quick elections without appropriate build up of institutions has led to a lot of negative outcomes in Iraq and the Palestinian areas, the need to spread a more “western” way of living has to remain central.  America is not built to go down the Realpolitik road.

It’s probably in our interest to break up Iraq and switch our alliances between Sunnis and Shiites as needed whenever one side gets too strong (if it means 50-100,000 need to die, that really shouldn’t matter).  It’s probably in our interest to be like the Chinese and sell weapons and invest with tyrants in Africa without being meddlesome as to how they govern their own people.  It’s probably in our interest to not even bother acting like we care, after all, at the end of the day, most countries consider their interests paramount no matter what they say and everyone thinks that’s how we are anyway.  Why bother being hypocritical?  Our hypocrisy on when it comes to what we say are our values just makes people mad at us and point their finger.  We are evil for Gitmo and Abu Ghraib.  We are hypocrites for supporting democracy in the Palestinian territories and then pressuring the ruling regime when it turns out those elected were dedicated to not recognizing Israel as a state.  We are hypocrites for supporting Musharraf in Pakistan since he is a military “Big Man.” And on and on and on.

 Of course few care too much about the Russians in Chechnya.  Some activists care about Darfur, but not really enough to do too much to pressure the Sudanese regime.  No one seems ready to try and get rid of Mugabe in Zimbabwe.  No one cares too much about human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia, or Libya, or Iran, or North Korea.  I guess if we didn’t act like we cared, maybe no one would care when we act solely in our interest no matter how cold blooded those actions.   Then again we do care.  We often fail to match our actions to our most deeply held beliefs and thus we do, on occasion, invite the charge of hypocrite.  That said, does the world really look at us as the fount of all post colonial, imperialistic evil.  I am sure Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, and the left establishment of academia feels this way.  But does the world?  One of my great frustrations is seeing just how criticized we are for trying but failing.  Many get away with much less criticism because they simply don’t try.  Woe to the world if America ever goes down that path, for it will be a path of unprecedented bloodshed.