Toward a `conservative' foreign policy

By Diana West

What might a "conservative" foreign policy look like? In the post-9/11 era, it's fair to say we have mainly followed a "neoconservative" foreign policy. This policy has been based on the rock-solid belief that there exist universal values that all peoples everywhere share and indeed yearn for if they don't already enjoy them. Our neoconservative foreign policy, then - our war-fighting policy, too - has been a matter of spreading such universal values. This has been a disaster. Think of nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan -- policies predicated on this denial of the existence of cultural difference. Certainly in this decade since 9/11 we should have learned that cultures, the West and Islam, namely, are different and that such universalism is a fantasy. The West enshrines the liberty of the individual, while Islam, like other totalitarian systems, enforces a collective will. Still, to this day, we don't permit this simple reality to be discussed let alone reflected in any meaningful policy way. The main dissent to neoconservative foreign policy on.... (Read Full Article)