Nor will we ever have the luxury of withdrawing from the world. If we tried, the world would simply come to us – as it did on 9/11. ~Ralph Peters

Because prior to 9/11, we had been withdrawing from the world so much.  This is the sort of idiocy that is normally reserved to such masters as Karl Rove, who offered this bit of insight earlier this year:

Well, we were not involved in the world before 9/11, and look what happened.

After all, we had only bombed, invaded or deployed forces to a measly six other countries in the previous twelve years, which does not begin to count the mere scores of countries where we have had bases.  Clearly, we were slacking off when it came to international meddling.  I mean, at that point we hadn’t funded a guerrilla insurgency on the other side of the planet for years!  Yes, the lesson of the last twenty years must be that withdrawing from our positions overseas is the luxury we cannot afford. 

Perpetual pursuit of hegemony is the only option that interventionists want to permit Americans to have, which is why there is no meaningful alternative on offer from either of the major parties on the ballot tomorrow.   

P.S.  As part of his dedicated effort to pen his third horrible foreign policy column in as many tries, Peters throws in an “Islamic fascist” reference, taking us back to the good old days of 2006-07 when this nonsensical description seemed to be everywhere.