Robert Kagan in Policy Review
“The first illusion, however, is that Bush really changed anything. Historians will long debate the decision to go to war in Iraq, but what they are least likely to conclude is that the intervention was wildly out of character for the United States. Since the end of World War ii at least, American presidents of both parties have pursued a fairly consistent approach to the world. They have regarded the United States as the “indispensable nation”2 and the “locomotive at the head of mankind.”3 They have amassed power and influence and deployed them in ever-widening arcs around the globe on behalf of interests, ideals, and ambitions, both tangible and intangible. Since 1945 Americans have insisted on acquiring and maintaining military supremacy, a “preponderance of power” in the world rather than a balance of power with other nations. They have operated on the ideological conviction that liberal democracy is the only legitimate form of government and that other forms of government are not only illegitimate but transitory. They have declared their readiness to “support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation” by forces of oppression, to “pay any price, bear any burden” to defend freedom, to seek “democratic enlargement” in the world, and to work for the “end of tyranny.” 4 They have been impatient with the status quo. They have seen America as a catalyst for change in human affairs, and they have employed the strategies and tactics of “maximalism,” seeking revolutionary rather than gradual solutions to problems. Therefore, they have often been at odds with the more cautious approaches of their allies. 5 “
