American Foreign Policy

Kenneth Minogue provides a superb summary of the case for the Bush foreign policy in the Nov 12 issue of TLS : “the United States is an open liberal democracy with which millions of Europeans are directly acquainted, and it has been our sheet-anchor against both fascist and Communist totalitarianism for a century or mor. It is responding to the unmistakable declaration of hostilities on September 11. Nobody has come up with an intellectually adequate response to these events, ut some pretty vigorous response there had to be, the Americans had to make it, and no serious judgment can yet be made about the Coalition’s moves in Afghanistan and Iraq. Whether this response may be counted a success is much disputed, but it can only be judged ?Eeventually ?Ein terms of the plausibility of alternative courses of action. Whether wise or not, the policy is certainly not irrational. And that has certainly been the judgement that sent Bush back to the White House.”

Why then is Europe so hostile to Bush and the US? Minogue explains this in terms of a contrast between the “Historic West” and the “Rationalist West.” The former takes its cues from Greece and Rome, as transformed by Christendom, and recognizes a large place for religion in public life. The Rationalist West pursues a program of internationalism that depends heavily on the United Nations. America’s key offense against Europe, he recognizes, is its religious fervor: “It is striking that the neoconservative concern for virtue has been construed by the European Left as evidence of fanaticism. Here is the Rationalist West expressing its rage at the Historic West, which is inescapably soaked in Christianity. When European Rationalists contemplate American Christianity, all they see is bigotry; the neoconservatives see probity.”