##Poverty of Dignity

<a href="http://www.lafayette.edu/press/releases/landisfriedman.html">Tom Friedman</a>, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist for the New York Times, was on NPR today.  He explained that the anger felt against America in the Middle East is due not to poverty per say, but to a "poverty of dignity".  Young Muslim men are brought up learning about the glories of Islam, only to find themselves disappointed by their Islamic countries' failure to modernize and keep up with the western world.  This creates a sense of loss of self-worth and dignity.  This feeling is expressed in the form of anger towards a successful Western country, the United States.  This is very insightful.

This is the same man who put for the theory that "<a href="http://www.anu.edu.au/mail-archives/link/link0108/0283.html">No two countries that both have a McDonald's have ever fought a war against each other</a>"

##Lessons in American Foreign Policy

I'm reading <a href="http://www.kokogiak.com/amazon/detpage.asp?sb=s&amp;asin=0375412301">Special Providence:  American Foreign Policy and How it Changed the World</a> by Walter Russell Mead.  The first chapter is spent refuting the claim that the USA has never had a clear foreign policy by giving examples of highly successful policies of the past, particularly pre-WW2 examples.  The second chapter examines why Continentalist (European) diplomats would believe that the US has no foreign policy, citing our focus on economics rather than politics, our world-wide rather than Euro-centric view, and our belief in a democracy being able to form an informed consensus rather than having a learned aristocratic leader singly formulate a nation's foreign policy.  Discussing the last point, Mead explains that there is "a moral gap as well between the experience of the citizens of a democracy and the conditions of their state."  In democracies following the rule-of-law idea the citizens are under the power of the police and courts, and wrongdoing will be punished with a suitable penalty.  There is no "diplomacy" when the policeman pulls over a motorist for speeding.  On the other hand, Continentalists would argue that in the realm of international relations there is no global policeman, lending "a curious moral air to international diplomacy, one far removed from the morality and habits of thought that make for a healthy domestic society."  In the global forum, every man stands for himself and "Machiavelli reigns as patron saint."  A different set of skills is required from policemen and diplomats, because moral standards are less clearly defined in the diplomatic forum.

Applying this to our situation with Iraq, it could be said that Bush and his American counterparts see the lack of a global policeman as a vacuum in diplomacy to be filled by the United States, while Europe accepts the absence as a matter of fact.  Hence the opposition from our Old World colleagues to see us involved military in Iraq.  As to whether to appease the Europeans or declare ourselves to be righter than they and take on the badge of sheriff, that is the decision of the current administration.  I think it's quite clear which path they've taken, although Colin Powell has made his influence as a skilled negotiator felt in the White House and President Bush is making some concessions to the Continentalist objectors by providing some final agreeable diplomatic outlets for Iraq before resorting to more menacing solutions.