But yes, I’m aware that both you and Larison would like to see a greater degree of disengagement. My point is that there’s fairly solid evidence that most Americans disagree.

Which is not, of course, dispositive. You can find a majority for all sorts of inane positions, and for many reasonable ones. My objection is to the notion that most Americans support disengagement, or that they would, if they only had available to them more complete information. That’s a tempting fantasy. Every advocate of a minority viewpoint is convinced that, if only the public understood the issue as well as he, it would change its mind.

The proof of the pudding, of course, is in the eating. There’s been a large and vocal minority supporting disengagement in this country since its founding. Critics of Israel, and of America’s relationship with the Jewish State, are not rare, nor are they shy. These positions and ideas are not new; they just happen not to be persuasive, at the moment, to an electoral majority. Reading these posts, I’m reminded of some committed Marxists I knew in college. They honestly and earnestly believed that, if only the American people could be exposed to the real facts and then have the opportunity to assert their will, revolution would be at hand. Opposition, they felt, always stemmed from ignorance.

I have the greatest respect for those who adhere to their views in the face of popular opposition. That, ultimately, is how change occurs – shifting attitudes and circumstances sometimes present the opportunity to change the popular consensus. But let’s be honest about the nature of the project. There’s no elite conspiracy subverting the popular will on foreign policy, no Foggy Bottom cabal willfully ignoring the democratic consensus. In the broadest terms, American foreign policy has always tended to reflect popular sentiment. When it moves too far out of whack, electoral pressure forces it back into line. Democratic processes, of course, are messy – and the most vocal and involved tend to have an outsize role. Almost no policies of our government reflect a position espoused by 51% of the public – they tend to be cobbled together from the positions advocated by interest groups of various kinds, frequently satisfying no one fully. That’s how the sausage is made. Foreign policy is no different.

So if you want to argue for disengagement, go right ahead. But acknowledge that the nature of the project is persuasion, rather than restoring popular sovereignty.

And what exactly would be wrong with disengagement? In fact, disengagement is precisely what most of us are suggesting.

I think it’s a stretch to use those results to argue that a clear majority of Americans support a neutralist position. That’s particularly the case because a large number of far more reputable polling operations, which actually called random samples, have reported strikingly high support for Israel – and a widespread perception that current American policy is fair.

Now, is it possible that this is the result of ignorance? Sure, it’s possible. It’s even likely. But that leaves you in a difficult spot. You want to argue that the American people are educated enough to make an informed decision about what our foreign policy ought to be, but so ignorant that they do not understand what it presently is. I don’t think you can have it both ways. If you’re going to appeal to democratic sentiment to support neutrality, you have to be able to credit the public with the ability to express its views.

In other words, that 71% who think we should be neutral lumps together disparate groups. The bulk of them consider our present policies to be fair; their endorsement of neutrality can hardly be a repudiation of those policies. It also undoubtedly includes some on both sides who think present policy tilts too far in the opposite direction, and who see ‘neutrality’ as a necessary rebalancing. But neutrality isn’t the same as passivity or disengagement.

That’s why most surveys ask which side respondents favor – it presents a choice between alternatives. Asking respondents if they think America should be neutral is like asking them if they’re moderate or middle class. We’re all middle-class moderates, because we assume that our own incomes and views are normative. We all want America’s policies to be fair and neutral, just so long as that neutral balance reflects our own.