GregsOpinion.com

In a very late followup to this post on Kevin Drum's take on "The Pentagon's New Map," Stephen Sestanovich effectively answers why America matters as much as it does:

This was Ronald Reagan's view when he scrapped d?tente. It was Bill Clinton's view when he abandoned the policy of "containing" genocide in the Balkans. And it was Madeleine Albright's view when she explained what she meant in calling the United States an "indispensable" nation: "We see further than other countries into the future."

Many Europeans might describe such ideas as arrogant or pernicious. But American maximalism needs to be understood for at least two reasons.

First, it is our tradition. Even the first Bush administration, for all its reputed pragmatism, reached for big solutions that cut against the grain of events. When it acted more cautiously - like the "Chicken Kiev" speech warning Ukrainians not to seek independence and the muddled end of the Persian Gulf war - the results were less favorable. Dr. Rice and her colleagues, who learned maximalism early, may need a new approach, but they won't find it in a mythical past of multilateral consensus-building.

More important, over the past quarter century, maximalism has worked: one of its clearest results is the post-cold-war emergence of a stable and unified Europe. Iraq may illustrate the hazards of a maximalist approach. But anyone who wants to frame an alternative, not least the allied leaders whom Dr. Rice will meet this week, must begin by reckoning with this record of success.

Precisely! That's not suggest there are hazards or room for mistakes. Sestanovich covers that territory fairly in regards to Iraq. But the alternative is not isolationism ... it is a more studied look at making the maximalist approach work better.