Why a Non-American Should Promote American Interests

On founding the Middle East Forum in January 1994, I chose the slogan "Promoting American Interests" because I was struck that American participation in the just-concluded Oslo accords and other Middle East diplomacy tended not to consider U.S. interests. This same lacuna existed, to a somewhat lesser degree, also in U.S. policy toward Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. In these cases, Washington seemed overly concerned with the welfare of those countries and not enough with the U.S. stake.

Michael Mandelbaum caught the spirit of this trend in 1996 with the derisive but accurate sobriquet "foreign policy as social work." That approach reached its awful apogee with the bizarrely named "Operation Iraqi Freedom" of 2003. I criticized this approach under George W. Bush, complaining that the Afghan and Iraqi wars "are judged more by the welfare of the defeated than by the gains to the victors."

"Promoting American Interests" serves as a corrective to this disinterested mentality.

I raise this question 17 years later because a British reader recently asked me where he fits in: "Why should I back American interests in the Middle East?" Fair question.

Woodrow Wilson initiated a new era in U.S. foreign policy.

My answer: American interests are world interests. Washington makes better decisions than New York (i.e., the United Nations). However imperfectly, the U.S. government has for a century offered a benign global stewardship. What other great power financed defeated foes, initiated development aid, pushed democratic reforms, promoted free trade, and encouraged regional blocs? American leaders have shown an enlightened self-interest without parallel in history.

Looking at the past rival (the Soviet Union) and the future one (China) only confirm this point, but so does a comparison with the United Kingdom. London balanced hostile elements and encouraged free trade but it lacked the principled, humanitarian, idealistic approach found in U.S. foreign policy.

That's why non-Americans should also promote American interests. (January 1, 2011)

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