Mr. McConnell’s newfound pessimism about America’s role in the world springs, I would suggest, from distinct sources on the paleoconservative Right. There is a natural affinity between nativism at home and defeatism (or worse) abroad. After all, who are we—mongrelized and cosmopolitan as we have become—to serve as any sort of model for the rest of the world? What good can come of trying to promote overseas the very sort of liberalization that, in the paleocon scheme of things, has corrupted our own once proudly Anglo-Saxon polity? ~Gary Rosen, Commentary

Via Surfeited with Dainties (Michael Brendan Dougherty) via Andrew Sullivan.

When I saw Mr. Sullivan’s remarks about a “smackdown debate” on foreign policy, I foolishly expected more of a debate and less of a rhetorical “smackdown” on Mr. Rosen’s part. It is telling that Mr. Rosen takes seriously only those criticisms that come from Messrs. Walt and Ellsworth (he does not even need to note his agreement with Mr. Balch and his ludicrous description of Secretary Rice as a realist). His rebukes to Mr. McConnell of TAC and Messrs. Preble and Logan from the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy are not very serious arguments (I know it virtually goes without saying, but it has to be said). My friend Michael Dougherty has already done fairly well laughing Mr. Rosen’s “criticism” to scorn in his own post. Rosen’s response to Mr. McConnell does not have any real rebuttal in the realm of foreign policy, as the non-sequiturs about anti-Semitism and the bizarre invocations of Anglo-Saxon identity clearly show. How odd that he would imagine that paleoconservatives, many of whom are of predominantly Celtic and German extraction, are eager to restore a specifically Anglo-Saxon polity. Michael also does a fine job of dismissing this point.

On foreign policy, Mr. Rosen cannot have it both ways: if there are purportedly “mundane” (i.e., non-“Israel lobby”) reasons why America supports Israel to the extent that it does (as he lectures Mr. Walt) and (it seems to me) this support would in turn reasonably extend to our government’s Near Eastern policies (including the invasion of Iraq), how can it be so wrong to think that some American policymakers (and perhaps, not incredibly, some of their Israeli counterparts) believe that Israel will benefit disproportionately from an aggressive American Near Eastern policy and that they act accordingly? Of course some American policymakers do believe this, and this has been one of their express goals in furthering such an aggressive policy.

For what it’s worth, it is not at all “obvious” and never has been “obvious” that Mr. Buchanan’s indictment of Sharon, Likud and Israel as the chief beneficiaries of the Iraq war has any resemblance whatever to Nazi slogans. This is a despicable and low accusation that was started, oddly enough, by Tony Blankley. Only someone who is perpetually obsessed with Nazism and sees Nazis in every corner would imagine this. Usually it is the person who reads random things into other people’s statements, or who twists those statements and rips them out of context to serve his turn, who is under suspicion of paranoia, delusion and prejudice.

But if support for Israel is so overwhelmingly popular, as he avers, any possible benefit to Israel from the war should be front and center in all of Mr. Bush’s statements about Iraq (why would a politician downplay something so very popular?). Of course, such statements, when they are made, are reserved for only those small audiences to whom the fate of Israel matters so much. (Mr. Bush did slip up in this regard and mention the security of Israel in a national speech late last year, absurdly linking Israel’s security to greater democracy in the Near East!) That might suggest that broader support for Israel is not so terribly popular, even though, on balance, Americans may sympathise with Israelis over Arabs (which, given the often negative popular attitudes about Arabs, is not exactly a ringing endorsement for the other side).

But who is Mr. Rosen kidding? When in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries has American foreign policy, especially when it is related to war, ever been guided by the overwhelming sentiments of the people? Suppressing the Filipino insurrection was not especially popular, just as annexation had not been especially popular. Entry into WWI on behalf of England was not at all popular (some 70% opposed entry into the war!), and no one would pretend that the provocative decisions of FDR prior to Pearl Harbor had some mandate from the public. The Open Door Policy was primarily a product of the influence of Northeastern commercial interests. The American people were not breaking down the doors of the Capitol to get Lend-Lease passed. There was not widespread clamour for a policy of internationalism and containment after WWII–presidents and bureaucrats made most of these decisions, far away from any real representation of the American people, and in each case Congress was either kept out of the loop or persuaded to submit.

There has never really been much grassroots demand for supporting Israel, at least not until it increasingly became something of an article of faith in certain Republican circles from the early 1980s on (which is, incidentally, when we see the beginning of the significant tilting of U.S. policy in the region), so that now there are large Republican constituencies that have come to believe there is some moral and perhaps even civilisational obligation to support and defend Israel. There was no widespread, popular call for the emergency airlifting of supplies and weapons to Israel in 1973, which may be said to mark the real beginning of the close relationship with Israel. It was Mr. Nixon who made that rather risky decision (denuding parts of western Europe of its armour defenses as it did). Ditto Vietnam, Lebanon, Panama, the first Gulf War, Bosnia and Kosovo. Perhaps that is part and parcel of how foreign policy must be made (though the lousy track record might suggest that we need other people making these decisions), and generally I appreciate that foreign policy is probably not guided by popular enthusiasms, but Mr. Rosen will probably have to find something else to hide behind besides citing irrelevant popular enthusiasm for a policy he prefers.

In Mr. Rosen’s tired and pitiful attacks on Messrs. Buchanan and McConnell, we are beginning to see a real desperation born of fear and panic among neoconservatives. The magic of shouting, “Anti-Semite and racist!” no longer banishes their enemies quite as far out into the margins as it once did, and the neocons are finding that the eminently reasonable arguments of noninterventionism are gaining traction despite their best efforts to kneecap the proponents of noninterventionism with their normal thuggish attacks and cheap insults.