He pointed beyond our superior technical universities and high-tech defense companies to the whole American system that has emerged from our "foundational values going back to Ben Franklin and before. It's a social and political system rooted in mavericks, innovation, risk-taking, open intellectual argument, impatience, creative change, failure, the frontier spirit, competition and a compulsion to get ahead." Henninger is suggesting that if we would understand America's willingness to "go it alone" in Iraq, we need to think about it in this cultural context.
America, says Henninger, has been going it alone throughout its entire history, whether measured from 1492 or 1776. To believe that we would act differently now because other nations disagree with us would be to completely misunderstand the American experiment.
If Bill Gross is right, the U.S. may have entered the last stages of her hegemony. By our profligacy and our military adventurism we might naively be ushering in a new era in which this nation will no longer sit at the head of the world's table. But it has occurred to me that there is more than one way to look at this concept of the "American hegemony."
Isn't it possible that what has been perceived as the dominant influence of one nation has been, all along, the dominant influence of an idea? The idea, of course, is that all men are created equal and have inalienable rights; the idea of freedom and of democratic capitalism that has become its societal expression. America merely has been the first and so far most successful embodiment of the idea, so the power that flowed from our embrace of freedom made it appear to be the "American hegemony." Is it possible that the bubbling cauldron of current events that seems so menacing is actually the formless waste from which will emerge a new and greater era of human freedom; that America will be a participant, but the actual hegemony will belong to the idea and not to any nation?
Encouraging History
Some of us have been surprised that a few allies of 50 years' standing, even countries that owe their continued existence to the sacrifice of American soldiers and taxpayers, have had the temerity to propose a world view different than ours. They say they believe their interests are threatened by our posture. Is it so offensive that they should fear absolute power more than they trust us not to abuse that power?
While it is understandable that nations refuse to see the world in the same way the current crop of American leaders see it, it is just as natural and understandable that a country as demonstrably powerful as the United States, perceiving itself at risk, would feel no need to clear its foreign policy with the representatives of its economic satellites.
So there we have it. After tedious efforts to achieve consensus, the reigning superpower makes its decision ... self defense and the liberation of a terrorized nation justify an invasion. The former co-superpower cajoles a few new allies and together they make their stand ... that this is a frightening and unjustified war. The rest of the world begins to line up on one side or the other, and the largest stock market in the world unmasks the conflicted hopes and fears of its citizens; soaring 4% one day and plunging 4% the next.
As advisors, we stand ever at the edge of tomorrow, squinting into the fog of uncertainty for some clue about the future we will shortly inhabit. How do we sort it out? Bill Gross looks at our march into Iraq to depose its admittedly vile dictator and he sees the U.S., I think, as a new tyrant; or at least as a country others perceive as imperialist and against which these others are aligning themselves. In our less-than-peak financial condition, he suggests, our economic dominance is vulnerable. Perhaps.
But in Middle Eastern history there is actually a very encouraging precedent of a military conqueror who transformed that region after his victory institutionalizing forbearance and respect toward religious beliefs and cultural traditions of the nations he defeated. Cyrus the Great (580-529 BCE) united two Iranian tribes, the Medes and Persians, and incorporated leaders from both tribes into his government. It was Cyrus who, in 537 BCE, allowed 40,000 Jews to leave Babylon and return to Palestine. Read his history when you have a chance; you will find it very encouraging as we face the uncertainties ahead.
Just imagine if America could realize a success like Cyrus'. Imagine that after Saddam's defeat, freedom actually does spread and democratic capitalism, perhaps in some improved form, does bloom in the desert as Geraldo hopes. Might this not be even better, for us and for the whole world, than an era of American hegemony?