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Silence of the Rational Center: Why American Foreign Policy Is Failing
By
Stefan Halper, Jonathan Clarke
In the 1940s, the theory known as "From Luther to Hitler" was all the rage. This was the seductive notion that Germany's career had been preordained by culture and history. As you looked backward, you would see nothing but an unbroken chain of necessity that inexorably led from "then" to "here and now."
Historians have long ago discredited this theory as a way of understanding national behavior, but in The Silence of the Rational Center, Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke succumb to a similar no-no with regard to the United States. Their vantage point is the Iraq war, which is vying for first place in the history of American foreign policy crack-ups. In their view, the "Big Idea" (plus assorted minor villains such as cable TV) is the main culprit driving U.S. actions. So what is that idea?
The "Big Idea" is American exceptionalism, which has imbued the republic with a mission to redeem the world. Its seed, Halper and Clarke argue, was planted as early as 1630, when John Winthrop famously sermonized, "Wee shall be as a Citty upon a hill, the eies of all people are uppon Us." Alas, they don't quote the rest: "Soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our God . . . and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a by-word through the world." In other words, no mission statement here. Winthrop was making an appeal to his flock "to love the Lord our God" and "one another, to walke in his wayes" so that God "may blesse us in . . . the good Land."
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