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The Irony of Manifest Destiny

Page 19

by William Pfaff


  Franklin, Benjamin, 46, 48, 51

  free market system, 204n9

  French Revolution, 6, 32–33, 50

  frontier thesis (U.S. history), 58

  Gaddis, John Lewis, 161

  Galbraith, John Kenneth, 170

  Gates, Robert M., 94, 95, 165

  Gay, Peter, 2, 40

  George III, 46

  Germany, 72, 101, 190. See also Hitler, Adolf

  globalization, 127

  Goldstein, Gordon M., 81n

  Gorbachev, Mikhail, 9, 154

  Gordon, Charles, 124

  Grant, Ulysses S., 70

  Gray, John, 27–28, 86–87

  “Greater Middle East,” 85

  Great Schism (Christianity), 25, 196n2

  Greek myths, 3

  Greek Paradigm, 4, 6

  Greenspan, Alan, 21n, 100, 204n9

  Guggenheim Museum, New York, 45–47

  gun ownership, 59

  Halle, Louis, 202n6

  Hamas, 85, 130

  hatred, 84, 186–187, 200n5

  Hegel, G. W. F., 6

  Hendrickson, David C., 170

  heresy, 22, 25–28, 30–31

  historicist theories, 86–87

  Hitchens, Christopher, 196n3

  Hitler, Adolf, 8, 37, 74, 88–89, 190, 198n6

  Hizbollah, 85

  Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), 133–134, 135n

  Holy Roman Empire, 23

  Hubris, 4, 6, 186

  Huckabee, Mike, 201n6

  Hulsman, John, 203n6

  humanitarian intervention, 182–184

  Huntington, Samuel, 73, 103–106, 109, 123, 151

  Hussein, Saddam, 161–162

  ideology. See also nationalism; utopianism, secular

  decision-making and, 88–89

  of democratic progress and inevitability, 15, 86–88, 122

  secular emergence of ideological extremism, 2

  secular utopian ideology and domination efforts by national leaders, 6–10

  world control and modern political ideology, 12–13

  Ignatieff, Michael, 184

  imperialism, xii, 155–157, 178, 184–190

  India, 204n10

  Indochina, 79–80, 159, 180

  integrism, Islamic, 129

  interventionism, arguments against, 78–81, 177–184

  Iran, 96, 180

  Iraq war

  Evangelical eschatology and, 64–65

  Gaddis on, 161

  motives for, 85, 90, 105, 161–162

  private contractors, 167

  Islam

  “clash of civilizations” theory and, 104, 106–110

  crisis within, 116–118, 127–129

  expansionism in, 9n

  history of, 113–116

  jihadism, 40–41

  monotheism and, 2, 110–113

  political system and modernizations, 118–122

  Qur’an, 117, 117n

  reaction to Western intrusion, 123

  violence and, 123

  Islamic Jihad, 130

  Islamist extremist or fundamentalist groups

  American belief in scope of, 136

  Muslim Brotherhood, 130–131

  nature of, 13–14

  Nazi themes in, 132

  new caliphate notion, 132–137

  as passing phenomenon, 150–151

  as political, 9n, 41

  as religious nationalism, 129–132

  Salafists, 130

  U.S. support for, 128–129

  Wahhabism, 128, 129, 137–138

  Western failure against, 130

  isolationism, U.S., 10, 13, 43–45, 74, 75–76, 177

  Israel, 40, 63, 85, 181–182, 208n12

  Italian fascism, 9, 36

  James, Henry, 55

  Japan, 8n, 101

  Jefferson, Thomas, 44, 48, 68

  Jesus of Nazareth, 23, 24, 110

  jihadism, 40–41

  Jim Crow, 60–61

  Johnson, Chalmers, 203n6

  Johnson, Lyndon, 61

  Judaism and Jews, 1, 22, 132. See also Israel

  Kahn, Herman, 205n10

  Kazin, Alfred, 51, 53

  Kennan, George F., 14–15, 74–77, 177–178, 185, 194n5, 201n5

  Kennedy, John F., 81n

  Khmer Rouge, 9–10, 126

  Khrushchev, Nikita, 203n7

  Kilcullen, David, 159–160

  Kristianasen, Wendy, 130

  Kissinger, Henry, 135

  Koestler, Arthur, 39, 198n7

  Laos, 80

  Lasch, Christopher, 193n3

  League of Nations, 72, 74, 100–101

  Lenin, Vladimir, 79

  Lewis, David Levering, 114–115

  Lieven, Anatol, 203n6

  Lilla, Mark, 151

  Lippmann, Walter, 203n6

  London Transport bombings, 140, 142

  “Long Telegram” (Kennan), 194n5

  Lukacs, John, 76, 195n5

  lynching, 59–60

  Madrid train bombings, 140, 142

  “magical irrealism,” 125–126

  Maistre, Joseph de, 187–188

  Manichean heresy, 27–28

  Manifest Destiny

  European exploration, 18–19

  as expansion, 58–59, 68–69, 155

  first use of term, 193n3

  reframing of, 10, 71–72

  Mao Tse-Tung, 88–89

  market rationality, belief in, 21n

  Marshall, George C., 168–69

  Marx, Karl, 34–35

  Marxism, 8, 39–40, 125

  Massachusetts Bay Colony, 23n, 29

  McCain, John, 12, 136

  McChrystal, Stanley, 164

  McPherson, James M., 200n5

  Mediterranean monotheism, 110–113

  military, U.S.

  configuration and orientation of, 83–84, 89–91, 154, 162, 189

  desegregation in, 60–61, 61n

  Evangelicalism and, 63–64

  National Defense Strategy statements, 94–99

  recruitment in, 84

  millenarianism, religious, 27–28, 111–112

  millenarian utopianism, 5–6

  Miller, Perry, 50

  Minogue, Kenneth, xi

  Mishra, Pankaj, 146

  missionary religion, 21–24

  monotheism, 1–2, 110–113

  Monroe Doctrine, 44–45, 69, 69n

  Montaigne, Michel, 19

  Montgomery, Bernard, 77

  “moral clarity,” 175–176

  Mormons, 29

  Muhammad, 110, 113

  Muslim Brotherhood, 130–131, 133

  Muslims. See Islam

  Mussolini, Benito, 9, 36, 197n6

  Nabahani, Taqiuddin, 133

  Napoleon, 6

  Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 128–129, 131–132

  National Defense Strategy statements, 94–99

  nationalism

  American, 13

  ethnic conflict after WWI, 73–74

  Islamic nationalist movements, 129–132

  Italian fascism and, 9

  jihadism as, 41

  Marxism and, 8

  Palestinian, 133

  as post-Napoleonic political force, 35–36

  Wilson and national self-determination, 73

  national myth, 67

  national security policy, U.S. See also military, U.S.

  exclusion of democratic influences from, 157

  National Defense Strategy statements, 94–99

  noninterventionist redefinition of, 178–179

  Obama, pressures on, 164–65

  nation-building, 91–94, 105

  NATO expansion, 36n

  natural selection, 20

  Nazism

  as elite rather than universalizing, 36–37

  European unification project, 8

  failure of, 9

  Islamic movements and, 132

  neoconservatism

  conservatism vs., 11

&nb
sp; European influences on, 174–176

  influence on Bush presidency, 173–175

  Middle East agenda, 85

  misreading of Japanese and German history, 101

  Obama and, 176–177

  Trotskyism and, 37n

  utopian beliefs of, 21n

  “neoisolationism,” 177

  New England, 51, 52

  Newhouse, John, 203n6

  New Paganism, 3

  New Tide movement (China), 124–125

  New World, discovery and image of, 18–19

  Niebuhr, Reinhold, 14, 202n6, 204n9

  Nitze, Paul, 202n5

  Nixon, Richard, 146

  Noll, Mark A., 51

  noninterventionist policy, 78–81, 177–184

  North Korea, 96

  nuclear weapons

  American preoccupation with, 99

  as defensive, 99

  Iran and North Korea and, 96

  terrorists and, 204n10

  U.S. deployment, continued, 171–172

  Obama, Barack, and administration

  Afghan-Pakistan war and, 85–86, 137, 146, 163–166

  election of, 61

  and federation of democracies, 12

  nation-building and, 94

  neoconservatives and, 176–177

  reconciliation and cooperation sought by, 187

  terrorism and, 15

  Olmert, Ehud, 208n12

  original sin, 51, 204n9

  Ottoman Empire, 115–116, 115n, 120–121

  Owen, Robert, 21n

  Paganism, Modern, 2, 40

  Paine, Thomas, 44

  Pakistan. See also Afghan-Pakistan war

  India and, 204n10

  public opinion in, 166

  spread of intervention to, 156

  Taliban and, 146–148

  Palestinians, 133, 181–182

  Pandora, 3

  Parker, Theodore, 52

  Petraeus, David, 165

  Philippines, 70

  Plato, 176

  Poe, Edgar Allan, 52

  pope-emperor structure, 116–117

  Popper, Karl, 86

  portrait exhibitions, 45–48

  power

  arbitrary use of, 184

  bipolar system and, 78–79

  executive, 160, 174–175

  hubris and, 4

  Kennan on, 194n5

  neoconservatism on, 175

  power

  universalization of, 4

  utopianism and desire for, 2–3

  predestination doctrine, 23, 28–29

  preemption, 161, 173

  preventive strategy, 173

  private security contractors, 167

  progress, notion of, 4, 15

  Protestants. See Christianity; Evangelical Protestantism, American

  Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph, 21n

  “Public and Private Portraits, 1770–1830” exhibition (Guggenheim, NY), 45–47

  Pursuit of the Millennium, The (Cohn), 30–31

  Qur’an, 117, 117n

  Qutb, Sayyid, 131–132

  racial oppression, 59–62

  radical doubt position, 19–20

  radicalism, Islamist. See Islamist extremist or fundamentalist groups

  railroad, transcontinental, 58

  Rand, Ayn, 21n

  rationalism

  ideological expansionism and, 13

  Romanticism vs., 35

  Unitarianism and, 52

  as value-free, 170–171

  in Western Christianity, 30

  Reagan, Ronald, 23, 154

  realism, political, 14–15, 177

  Red Guards movement (China), 126–127

  religion. See also Christianity; Evangelical Protestantism; Islam

  Darwinism and, 54

  Enlightenment thought and, 18, 20

  Judaism, 1, 22

  millenarianism, religious, 27–28, 111–112

  millenarian substitution for, 5

  missionary assumptions and, 21–24

  monotheism, 1–2, 110–113

  prophecy and doctrine as guiding forces in, 12

  theocracy, 23, 29

  Transcendentalism, 52–54

  upper-class and lower-class Protestants in U.S., 55

  utopianism in, 3

  “religious right,” 28

  Rice, Condoleezza, 7, 72, 91–93, 136

  Richmond Dispatch, 200n5

  Riedel, Bruce, 146, 166n

  romanticism, 9, 35

  Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, xii, xiii, 74, 168

  Roosevelt, Theodore, 168

  Rougemont, Denis de, 187–188

  Rumsfeld, Donald, 92, 146

  Russia, 97, 105. See also Soviet Union

  Ruthven, Malise, 120, 132

  Rwanda, 38, 183–184

  Ryn, Claes G., 175

  Sadat, Anwar el-, 131, 132

  Sageman, Marc, 138–141

  Saudi Arabia

  al Qaeda and, 137–138

  Carter and, 153–154

  demolition in sacred cities, 128n

  U.S. bases in, 41, 90, 154–155

  Wahhabism and, 128

  Schmitt, Carl, 174–175

  Schumpeter, Joseph, 155, 167

  science, 20, 171

  Scopes “monkey trial,” 200n6

  Scotch-Irish, 56–57

  secularism and synthetic religion, 12

  secularization and utopianism, 2, 3

  secular utopianism. See utopianism, secular

  self-determination, national, 73

  September 11, 2001, attacks, 108–109, 160

  Serbia, 38

  Sharansky, Natan, 203n9

  Shari’a law, 120

  Sharon, Ariel, 85

  Sherman, William T., 52, 70

  slavery, 60

  Smith, Joseph, 29

  South, U.S.

  European influences on, 51–52

  religion in, 56

  Scotch-Irish population, 56–57

  slavery and racial oppression in, 59–62

  violence in, 57

  Soviet Union

  Afghanistan invasion, 153–154, 206n1

  Containment policy toward, 14–15, 76, 194n5

  Russianization of Leninism, 79

  secular utopianism in Communist Party, 38–40

  Sino-Soviet split, 203n7

  Spanish-American War, 70

  Stalin, Josef, 8, 37, 88–89, 203n7

  State Department, reconfiguration of, 93

  Status of Forces Agreement, 98

  Steel, Ronald, 202n6

  Stillman, Edmund, 78

  Strauss, Leo, 174, 175, 176

  Stuart, Gilbert, 46

  stupidity, political, 190

  Sudan, 124, 182, 183

  Taft, Robert A., 75

  T’ai P’eng Rebellion, 124

  Tajikistan, 134

  Taliban, 140–141, 145–148

  Tennyson, Alfred, 75

  terrorism. See also al Qaeda; Islamist extremist or fundamentalist groups; war on terror

  anarchism and, 5

  as constructed, 109

  Foreign Policy Research Institute survey on, 138–141

  as identified enemy, 13–14, 15–16

  by Islamist extremist groups, 9n

  nuclear weapons and, 204n10

  as reaction to Western interference, 40–41

  recruits and “training,” 138, 141–142

  threats as virtual, 162

  theocracy, 23, 29

  Thirty Years War, 31–32

  Thucydides, 190

  Tocqueville, Alexis de, 50

  Tolstoy, Leo, 53n

  totalitarianism. See also fascism

  Arendt on, 193n3

  invention of term, 36

  violence under, 37–38

  Transcendentalism, 52–54

  Trotsky, Leon, 37, 37n

  Truman, Harry, 60–61

  Tucker, Robert W., 170

  Turkey, 119, 121. See also Ottoman Empire


  Turner, Frederick Jackson, 58

  Unitarianism, 52

  unitary executive, legal theory of, 174–175

  United Nations, 75, 100–101, 182

  United States. See also specific administrations, wars, and topics, such as Manifest Destiny or war on terror

  “Christian America” notion, 51, 55

  “City on the Hill” as founding myth, 23

  cultural influences in New England vs. South, 51–52

  elections (2006 and 2008), 164–165

  empire-ending prospects, 184–190

  Enlightenment and, 48–54

  Europe, discontinuity with, 45–51

  Europe, efforts toward domination of, 8–10

  European expatriation, 54–55

  French Revolution, denunciation of, 50

  isolationist beginnings of, 43–45

  military expansionism vs. isolationism, 13

  military presence in Middle East, 41

  realism, abandonment of, 14–15

  shift from isolationism to utopianism, 10

  Southern cultural legacy, 55–57

  Southern race relations, 59–62

  violence in, 57–60

  wars, failure to disengage from, 88

  “Wild West,” 58–59

  universalism, utopian

  Enlightenment principles and, 20

  Nazism and, 37

  “progress” and, 4

  Western tradition of, 2–3

  utopianism, secular

  19th-century liberal confidence, 33–34

  capacity for the ruin of societies, 151

  democratic expansion and, 11–12

  European domination efforts by ideological leaders, 6–10

  fascism and totalitarianism and, 36–38

  history of utopias, 20–21

  idealistic political-action version of, 4–5

  Mediterranean monotheisms and, 112

  millenarian version of, 5–6

  radical Islam and, 41

  religious millenarianism vs., 27–28

  secularization and, 2, 3

  in Soviet Union, 38–40

  value-free scientific rationalism and, 170–171

  Western tradition of utopian ambition, 2–3

  utopianism, theocratic, 29

  Uzbekistan, 134

  Vietnam

  American ideology and policy on, 81–82

  blame over, 166n

  Cambodia invasion by, 126

  direct intervention policy and, 80

  lessons of, 105

  post-Vietnam hatreds, 186–187

  vigilantes, 59–60

  violence, international. See war and violence, international

  violence, in U.S., 57–60

  Wahhabism, 128, 129, 137–138

  war and violence, international. See also specific wars and conflicts

  within Christianity, 24–25, 31–32

  in Cold War, xii–xiii

  democracy and ideology of peace, 88

  democratic expansionism and, 13–14

  Enlightenment and rise of modern violence, 6, 10

  foreign intrusion and occupation, resistance to, 122–127

  imperialism and, 156–157

  limited and instrumental, ended by French Revolution, 32–33

  noninterventionist policy alternative, 177–184

 

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