Hands across the water

Here's one way in which the controversy over liberal interventionism is like the Second World War; rather late in the day, when our trusty little band of Watchers has all but been ground down beneath the Mighty Egg Of Truth and our Empire is a shadow of its former self, the Yanks are coming to save our asses.

Leaving aside the narcissism involved in the implicit claim that making banal arguments about liberal democracy being preferable to totalitarianism represent great courage, I'm confused about the causal mechanism here. Protests that had no impact on a domestic government's rush to war can be expected to topple dictatorships in other countries? Protest movements in Iran will be helped by being associated with western groups?

Sweet as a nut.

[Paul Berman]He's made it very difficult to present the war as an extension of the liberal and humanitarian interventionism of the 1990s in which Tony Blair played a distinguished and honorable and brave role.

Maybe it was hard to "present" that way because...it wasn't. Anyway, apparently we were supposed to believe that the leader of the most important American ally in the war couldn't influence Bush's conduct at all, but some liberal hawks with no electoral constituency who supported the war for the right reasons could. Evidently, the fact that this kind of stuff is presented in a frame of self-congratulation for telling the Hard Truths that war opponents are too blinded by Bush-hatred to see adds to the comic effect

The temptation to just coast along and just put up a link to that post every week or so instead of proper "World of Decency" blogging is palpable. If it wasn't for the Yanks we'd be speaking German, you know.