"The collapse of the Soviet Union freed the world of a horrid tyranny and global menace. However, it also unleashed an orgy of hubris in Washington. Convinced that America won—with little consideration of the contribution of the USSR’s Mikhail
Gorbachev, who kept the Red Army in its barracks—members of America’s foreign policy elite viewed Moscow’s collapse as only the first step. They considered themselves custodians of the globe’s unipower, with the mandate of heaven to remake the
entire world, regardless of the cost to Americans and other peoples.

The first Gulf War reinforced Washington’s illusion of omnipotence. “What we say goes,” intoned President George H.W. Bush, acting as the proverbial master of the universe. Alas, Uncle Sam’s arrogance only grew. The Clinton administration’s
secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, declared: “If we have to use force, it is because we are America: We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us.”

At the time her comment looked like comedic bluster, what you would expect from a wannabe generalissima who had been denied the presumed pleasure of sending masses of people into battle to their deaths. But in three short years, the endless wars
initiated by President George W. Bush in response to 9/11 turned the outburst into deadly policy. Two decades later who on earth, other than an Albright-wannabe, could believe that American policymakers see further into the future?

Unfortunately, this unbridled hubris, which suffuses those who command the world’s most powerful military, has had catastrophic results. In the world imagined by members of the blob, Ben Rhodes’s inelegant label for the foreign policy establishment,
U.S. policymakers are entitled, indeed, required to kill and destroy to create a better world.

Again, Albright led the way. As she infamously asked Colin Powell: “What’s the use of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?” It evidently didn’t occur to her that the lives of military personnel, few of
whom joined to be gambit pawns in her global chess game, deserved consideration. Perhaps even worse was her answer to the question of whether the deaths of half a million Iraqi children from U.N. sanctions were worth the price. Of course, she insisted: �
�We think the price is worth it.” Yes, American policymakers, anointed by God, or whatever is the modern, secular equivalent, are entitled to decide who lives and dies halfway around the globe. Indeed, these otherwise unimportant foreigners presumably
should feel honored to die in Washington’s service.

What else to make of the invasion of Iraq, based on a lie, that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis? What about two decades of war in Afghanistan, which turned the countryside into a rural abattoir? How else to defend aiding the overthrow of Libya’s
dictator, while ignoring the decade of intermittent warfare that followed? Even more grotesque was helping Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed “Slice ‘n Dice” bin Salman impoverish, starve, and kill hundreds of thousands of Yemenis. Current U.S.
policy is to punish the suffering masses in Syria and Venezuela, since nothing else has succeeded in overthrowing the dictators who, unlike the Saudi crown prince, Washington dislikes. As Madeleine Albright explained, we think the price is “worth it”�
��at least when others bear the cost.

Despite its endless failures of late, Washington never changes. True, President Donald Trump made some effort to challenge the status quo, but he allowed the generals to beat him into submission when it came to questioning the NATO alliance and South
Korean “mutual” defense treaty. He was equally weak in overcoming resistance to withdrawing from Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq.

Now the Biden administration is moving in the opposite direction. After criticizing the murderous Saudi tyranny, President Joe Biden submissively begged Riyadh to increase oil production—only to be dramatically snubbed. Yet he apparently is pressing
the Kingdom to allow American military personnel to act as bodyguards for the licentious, dissolute royals. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put unusual pressure on the Europeans to do more in defense, but the administration has rushed more troops to
the continent, even calling up reserves, and spent far more money than the Europeans to aid Kiev. Today the United Kingdom, one of the most hawkish European governments, is reducing the size of its army because, well, it can with America on station.
Biden is begging the South Korean government to let Americans risk nuclear strikes on their homeland in order to defend Seoul.

All these policies put the interests of foreign governments before those of the American people."

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/america-requires-a-real-foreign-policy-debate/

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