New Foreign Policy Vision Reflects

A New Breed of Conservatism 

D. J. Tice

      D. J. Tice is an editorial page writer for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. This article is reprinted from the Pioneer Press.

      In February I enjoyed a “Lincoln’s Birthday dinner” with several stimulating conservative thinkers.

      A national debate brewing this spring about America’s newly visionary foreign policy reminds me that I tasted that evening a sample of the idealistic, crusading spirit that today inspires many American conservatives. Apt or not, “neoconservative” is the label this state of mind has been given.

      Two issues produced lively debate over the steak and seafood pasta. I had written a Lincoln column that day. I’d focused on the greatest American’s devotion to the rule of law, reflecting that while Lincoln’s hatred of slavery was strong, he waged civil war to save America’s constitutional order.

      One companion objected to this humble view of Lincoln’s motives. He insisted that the moral imperative to abolish slavery fueled Lincoln’s determination. For this conservative, a Lincoln not consumed by a higher moral mission, but mainly committed to fulfilling his oath of office, would be no special hero.

      The subject turned to the then-approaching war in Iraq and America’s mission in the world. Several dinner mates eloquently endorsed the Bush administration’s stated vision—that America can and should bring, not just stability, but democracy and modernity to the Middle East and beyond.

      But what, I asked, if people in Islamic countries or elsewhere don’t want democracy and modernity? What if their religious and cultural values support some other social order?

      The answer seemed to be that human beings are all children of the same creator, destined to inherit individual liberty (“God’s gift to humanity,” President Bush has called it). History’s inexorable erosion of oppressive social systems may simply need to be speeded up in some places—and American power can be the accelerant.

      I’ve been chewing on those ideas ever since that dinner. This meaty discussion is further proof that the most challenging and important debates in America today are happening within the conservative movement.

      There is certainly something to digest when conservatives proclaim a higher moral mission to “make the world not just safer but better,” as Bush’s September 2002 “National Security Strategy” puts it. That document calls for “a distinctly American internationalism that reflects the union of our values and our national interests.”

      Traditionally, conservatives were just those people who were content to make the world “safer,” to protect America’s “interests, and who saw hubris and hazard in the attempt to force American “values” into inhospitable places.

      The late Russell Kirk, author of the seminal The Conservative Mind, and a sure guide to classical conservative attitudes, warned against an

. . . insidious . . . imperialism, applauded rather than denounced by humanitarians, a resolution that all the world should be induced to embrace American principles and modes of life, founded on the immense presumption that American society is the final, superior product of human ingenuity.

      Fewer conservatives worry about “immense presumption” these days. As Kirk and other conservatives of his generation feared, America’s 20th century confrontations with rival value systems that sought to impose worldwide tyranny may have finally convinced the entire nation that America must itself reshape the whole world. American democracy will be safe, in this view, only when the whole globe is “safe for democracy.”

      Conservatives still want little to do with leagues of nations (or U.N.s). Otherwise, Woodrow Wilson’s view of America’s limitless calling has prevailed.

      A Bush administration envoy told Iraqis recently: “We want you to establish your own democratic system based on Iraqi traditions and values.”

      That sounds a little like Henry Ford, who famously offered customers a Model T in any color they liked—“as long as it’s black.”

      The New York Times’ conservative commentator William Safire recently described America’s new security policy as (think about this) “pre-emption as a last resort.”

      That sounds a little like George Orwell.

      The Times’ liberal columnist Nicholas Kristof recently applauded the new “conservative idealists” (see Kirk’s prediction above) but suggested that American success in the Arab world won’t be complete until all Arab societies give women the vote and discard extreme sexual modesty (while preserving Islamic traditions, of course).

      That sounds a little like, well, immense presumption.

      It is possible to see everything the Bush administration has done so far in the “war on terror” as pragmatic. It has eliminated selected threats with force, and in the process scared some sense into other hostile regimes. Perhaps the messianic rhetoric is mainly visionary varnish on big-stick foreign policy.

      There is nothing unconservative or unwelcome about America trying to help establish more decent governments everywhere—and to nourish modern, democratic social systems wherever they authentically fit local traditions and values.

      But if there are conservatives who believe that America’s “nation building” must always mean building nations that broadly “embrace American modes of life”—well, in that case we conservatives have more thinking and talking to do.     Ω