[general_re]

This is exactly the heart of the issue but I could not disagree more with your assertion. In the arts and in cultural analysis cultural relativism has exerted a pernicious influence. It has effected the judgement of our elites to the point where we are afraid to assert traditional American values in foreign policy just as many politicians are embarassed to defend traditional American values on the domestic front.

Wait, wait - let's not conflate the notion of other cultures as rational with the notion that they are moral. The two concepts are not one and the same. In one sense, if I can eliminate the risk of punishment, it's a perfectly rational course of action for me to kill you and take your possessions - the risk is low and the rewards are high - but that hardly makes it moral for me to do so. And on the opposite side of that coin, sacrificing one's own life for the life of a perfect stranger is not really what we would call a rational choice, especially where self-preservation is held paramount, but in many circumstances, it is a highly moral choice.

So when I say that they are rational actors, it should not be taken to mean that everything they do is somehow okay - it's not intended to excuse them, but to explain them. And as I said, this is not least because defining them as "irrational" is not a useful designation - they aren't irrational, it's just a different calculus at work. And you can hardly understand your enemies without first coming to understand how they think.

An effective foreign policy for the 21st century will recognize that any government that systematically supresses human rights lacks legitimacy even if such a government is favored by the majority of its citizens.

And what then are we to make of a state that systematically suppresses the fundamental right of self-determination when it happens to dislike the results? There is no moral high ground in such a position, and no particular legitimacy inheres in such a foreign policy. "We know what's good for you better than you know what's good for you" has been the source of endless troubles throughout the world, literally for millennia, but now we're supposed to embrace that on our own behalf? And what will we say when someone comes to us and says "we know what's good for you better than you do"? Or will it simply be meaningless, because we have the power to impose our will upon others, and nobody has the power to impose theirs on us? In which case, isn't that exactly the same as saying that we have the right by virtue of the fact that we have the might?

Having a universal standard against which to measure the behavior of governments is powerful concept which has been thrown away because of our uncritical acceptance derived from our anti-colonial past of the right of National Self-Determination.

It's been thrown away because it's dangerous. It's a great idea, so long as you're the one who gets to decide which standard will apply. But what will we say when the world decides that laissez-faire capitalism "systematically suppresses the human rights" of the American people - namely, their "right" to free health care, free education, a massive welfare state, and so forth? Upon what grounds will we object if they decide to ignore the right of self-determination among Americans, and simply impose the sort of government they think we deserve?

No, I think it's really best to stay out of the crusade business in the first place. Iraq in its present form will die not because we have the "right" to adjudge its legitimacy, but because it is a danger to us and a danger to others, and because we have the right to defend ourselves from madmen with the ability to kill millions. But because we exercise that right, we have a corresponding responsibility to see that Iraq is reborn a better place. We don't do it because we have the right to remake the world as we see fit - we do it because our desire for self-preservation demands it, and leaves us no other choice. We don't act because we can, or because we have the right - we act because we have to. And then we follow the moral and humane course, and rebuild them better than they were before.

[ggekko]

"So when I say that they are rational actors, it should not be taken to mean that everything they do is somehow okay...."

Would that the Islamic fanatics and the Governments that support them act like characters from the "Sopranos"; the motivations and actions of "Soprano" type characters are at least comprehensible and somewhat predictable. What motivates many Islamic fanatics and intellectuals is the historical memory of a supposed Golden Age of Islamic culture that never existed. It is a narcotic fantasy invented by Islamic intellectuals. In my experience, there is nothing more dangerous than a person or culture mired in a delusion.

Your distinction between the rational and the moral is true but somehwat trivial in relation to the issue at hand. You did not address directly the question of cultural relativism in foreign policy. There are certain human freedoms that are universal. The issues you have raised are exactly how the Nazis defended themselves at the Nuremburg trails. Their argument was that everything that they did was legal under German law; since it was legal it was moral for them. Who were the Allies the to judge?

It was only after the prosecutors at Nuremburg adopted a Natural Law argument that asserted universal human rights that they were able to obtain convictions. The chief Allied prosecutor, Judge Jackson, mired as he was in the positivist theories of Oliver Wendell Holmes, nearly lost the case.

"And what then are we to make of a state that systematically suppresses the fundamental right of self-determination when it happens to dislike the results?"

According to this logic, then, Hitler would have been okay along as he didn't invade any other countries and stuck to only murdering German citizens. Under those circumstances according to your logic no other state would have the right to interfere in German internal affairs. A pretty curious doctrine.

I don't think it very difficult to seize the moral high ground from states such Cambodia under Pol Pot or Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union. The abuse of universal human rights in such countries is so pervasive and obvious that they inspire unanimous condemnation.

"It's a great idea, so long as you're the one who gets to decide which standard will apply..."

A Government that does not systemically supress ethnic minorities, does not arbitrarily supress basic economic freedoms, that promotes the rule of law, allows a free press, and does not supress religious expression cuts a broad swath across different cultures and types of Governmental forms of organization. It would include under its umbrella liberalizing Islamic regimes such as Qatar and European welfare states such as Sweeden. Even some Constutional monarchies would be able to deliver these rights to its people.

To think that states that cannot meet these basic criteria are dysfuntional and are potential candidates for change is not very hard to conceive. A Government of "limited and enumerated" powers has very strong appeal around the world. We seem to have forgotten this in a misguided desire to portray very culture and Government as being equally good and valid.