The Empire 438

Empire Foreclosed?

by Mark Engler

Published on Saturday, April 18, 2009 by Foreign Policy In Focus

Not long ago, excitement over American imperialism reached levels not seen

in a century. "People are coming out of the closet on the word 'empire,'"

the right-wing columnist Charles Krauthammer told The New York Times in

early 2002. Neoconservatives were on the rise in Washington, and their

leading propagandists were not shy in making the case for aggressive

expansionism.

Wall Street Journal editor Max Boot, for instance, took issue with Pat

Buchanan's belief that the United States should be a "republic, not an

empire." "This analysis is exactly backward," Boot wrote. "[T]he Sept. 11

attack was a result of insufficient American involvement and ambition; the

solution is to be more expansive in our goals and more assertive in their

implementation." He added, "troubled lands today cry out for the sort of

enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident

Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets."

It's hard to believe those sentiments, hallmarks of George W. Bush's first

term, were features of our very recent history. The debate they were a part

of now seems distinctly strange and foreign. Since then, the world has

experienced a catastrophic occupation in Iraq, and voters have ousted the

Republican vanguard of the "War on Terror." Overt defenders of imperialism

have found good reason to creep back into their wardrobes.

And that, of course, is to say nothing of the bursting of the housing

bubble, the fall of Lehman, and the end of the hedge fund era. With

unemployment rising and Wall Street shamed, we have entered a period of

economic downturn acute enough to raise serious questions about the

viability of U.S. power. The pressing issue today is: How will the economic

crisis affect our country's role in the world? Or, more bluntly: Is

America's empire facing foreclosure?

Lees verder: http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6049