1.10.2009

Something which sensible people can anticipate?

Ivan Eland asserts:

Somebody is going to have to whisper in President-elect Obama's ear that the unipolar moment has passed and the United States can no longer afford its informal worldwide empire. Even though the looming economic meltdown will likely be serious — and maybe even cataclysmic — the foreign policy chattering classes of both parties are on autopilot and have not yet abandoned their interventionist consensus. A rude awakening awaits.

Yes, it does. I can only make a wild guess about the event that could quickly and decisively undermine what appears to be a category-wide refusal to learn from experience. It does not promise to be pleasant, though.

Nevertheless, Eland lacks faith in Obama:

A soft landing for a declining empire is better than a hard one. Unfortunately, Obama seems captive to the liberal wing of the interventionist foreign policy establishment, just as George W. Bush was ensnared by the right wing of that same militaristic consensus.

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