The "Cold War Liberal" is dead

Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of the center-left New Republic, is one of the more sane of the liberals. In a piece he wrote for the New York Times Magazine this past Sunday, he pines for the resurgence of the Cold War Liberals exemplified in action by Harry Truman and in theory by folks like Reinhold Niebuhr and Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. It's worth a look.

Beinart's theme basically is that today's liberals must hearken back to the days of Truman and the early Cold War when the United States acted in concert with other nations, even those who did not entirely agree with us, and in doing so set the stage for the eventual victory against communism.

The problem, of course, is that Beinart's Cold War liberals are long dead. John Kerry, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid aren't fit to share an outhouse with George Marshall and Harry Truman.

Beinart's history is a bit suspect. He claims, for instance, the Clinton and Blair had the right idea in the Balkans but Clinton's foibles caused Blair's internationalist ideas to be 'stillborn'. Wishful thinking at best.

Beinart defines the problem reasonably but his solution is old and tired.

Where is the moral and the legal and the political authority for you to do this? The authority has to come out of some kind of reference point, some legitimate reference point — treaties, international law, international conventions, U.N. Security Council resolutions, General Assembly consensus, some mechanism that has credibility.

It's sad that someone like Beinart really thinks the UN still has credibility. Beinart proceeds then to fall back on another trite platitude - persuasion.

In the liberal story, America's power to intervene effectively overseas depends on its power to persuade and not merely coerce. The power to persuade depends on a willingness to be persuaded. And that willingness depends, ultimately, on America's willingness to entertain the prospect that it is wrong.

Soft power - ah that old chestnut. Works great. In Old Europe. Persuasion isn't very effective against Islamicists (Iran) or totalitarians (China).

Beinart closes with the following:

Almost six decades ago, Americans for Democratic Action was born, in the words of its first national director, to wage a "two-front fight for democracy, both at home and abroad," recognizing that the two were ultimately indivisible. That remains true today. America is not a fixed model for a benighted world. It is the democratic struggle here at home, against the evil in our society, that offers a beacon to people in other nations struggling against the evil in theirs. "The fact of the matter," Kennan declared, "is that there is a little bit of the totalitarian buried somewhere, way down deep, in each and every one of us." America can be the greatest nation on earth, as long as Americans remember that they are inherently no better than anyone else.

Unfortunately, the ADA has long since become a knee-jerk far left organization whose primary contribution is the ADA rating on how insanely liberal legislators can be. And where I deeply and profoundly disagree with Beinart is the assertion that Americans are inherently no better than anyone else.

I am a deep believer in American exceptionalism, something that's best exemplified by a quote from former Secretary of State Colin Powell. [This is a bit of a paraphrase but it's late so forgive me.]

"For its sacrifice America has never asked for any land in return other than a place to bury her dead."