[Retain Mike]

Saying Americans believe they have some heaven sent mandate to save the world sounds like an isolationist position popular with whichever party is not currently holding the presidency. After WW II the Japanese saved Japan and the Germans saved Germany. People should understand the best one can hope to achieve is establishing an environment conducive to governments lasting more than one generation.

I think we have an obligation to base our foreign relations on the intangibles which define the best aspects of our character, and move on to real politick reluctantly. Otherwise prosecuting national interests means making a deal for access to economic resources with the ruling elite of the ascendant tribe for a generation, when the next revolution comes along.

[robowombat]

The purpose of nations is to advance the particular nation's interest or the interests as defined by the ruling class or group. There is nothing else. There is no moral order in the universe and those who believe in one are believing in the international version of the Easter Bunny. Real US security interests are involved in many of our actions. Unfortunately they are so deeply camouflaged by moralizing bafflegab that it can be difficult to find them. What on earth does it matter to most of us what the Iraqis do to each other absent its government being relentlessly hostile towards US interests? World saving or some sort of mandate of heaven was first identified after the Great Adventure of World War One when Americans started to ask what they had gotten out of it (quite a bit actually. We ended up with most of the world's gold supply and emerged immensely stronger economically than anyone else. But you weren't supposed to say anything that crude.)

The overwhelming pulverization of enemies in World War Two did give the US the opportunity to order the non communist world in a shape that it desired more than any nation before. Fixing security and economic arrangements so we could run the show is not Wilsonian globospeak but real politic disguised as moral crusading. It certainly was good for the US. If it helped others fine but that is incidental to me. We exist to help ourselves pure and simple and anything else is dangerous and delusional. (Although we have had plenty of those things in the history of our foreign policy.)