President Obama has been drawing fire for the anti-exceptionalism tenor of his foreign policy speeches. He is daring to admit that we are not an exception to the long and sorry cautionary history of self-interested nations. He’s saying we need a little humility, to the extent even of being willing to come down off our high horse and talk to countries we don’t agree with.
Some have said this seems to contradict the whole spirit of our recent Independence Day. Doesn’t it say right in our own Declaration that we are a god-blessed exception?
Americans have long believed that we occupy a unique perch above history from which to intervene in the affairs of other countries if we think we should. This is a vast naivete from which we and the rest of the world have suffered. So it seems like a welcome step in the maturing of America that Obama seems to be trying to remove American exceptionalism from our foreign policy.
On the other hand, he is stepping up the intervention into Afghanistan a lot more energetically than a lot of his well-wishers feel comfortable with. Out of the Iraqi frying pan into the Afghan fire, it seems like.
It’s a tricky question: when to intervene, how to intervene. Whether to intervene. We need a theory of intervention—or at least a sobering dose of realism– and we need it now. It’s painful to watch certain things: the Taliban’s public flogging of a teenage girl for stepping outside of house without male escort. A couple shot for eloping. Women in certain muslim countries forced to live their whole public lives in a virtual tent. What looks like the same-old, same-old anti-reformist candidate win in what looks like a rigged election. One half of a people hacking the other half to pieces.
The blood boils. How can we just stand by and let such things happen? Isn’t it a simple duty of the biggest country in the world (with our democracy derived from the Almighty Himself) to step in, put things right?
But as we have learned in Vietnam and Iraq, it’s not so simple. Even with the purest motives in the world—Obama’s are widely believed to be a lot purer than those of the last administration– can we do it? Can we get in and out? Will we not get caught in the quagmire of Afghan history, politics and religion as have other interveners before us? Can we be the exception to the rule?
The deft intervention—that’s for us; it’s intervention American style.We have no territorial ambitions, lord knows, no interest in colonizing like the Brits of previous centuries. We just want, so modestly and prudently, to get in and out. Transform this benighted place with a wave of the magic wand of the American way, democracy and all that good stuff, and we’ll be on our way.
Nice work if you can get it.
We probably can’t help but want to fix things elsewhere and maybe in some cases that’s a good thing. But we will be more effective if we lose the exceptionalism fantasy.
For starters, start applying the Golden Rule. We have much in our own history that it is painful for others to watch. Do we give leave to other countries to intervene in our affairs when they don’t understand just why our economy requires us to use slaves (or burn and hang them from trees when they don’t behave?) Or why developing the continent requires clearing out the pesky native population? Or why we need to torture terrorist suspects in the name of freedom?
Drop the paternalism. Uncle Sam has a way of coming on as Big Daddy. Other countries are not children who just haven’t learned how to act yet. They are grownups run by grownups.
Get over the cherished idea of deft intervention. When Americans are being asked to approve an intervention, let us vote on the real deal. It won’t be deft. It will be a quagmire. It’s called history. When you step into the river of another country’s history you get your feet wet.
As I think Obama is saying, despite his stand on Afghanistan, it’s time our nation with its youthful self-image became sadder but wiser.
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