A Holiday From History?

The last three years, in terms of foreign policy have been very active ones for the US. Our entire worldview was changed (at least temporarily) by an attack and the concern about more and worse attacks. The Bush Administration decided to abandon a realpolitik policy towards the Middle East that had been unquestioned for years in favor of one that sought to radically alter the region. Undoubtedly there has been much "drama" in these past few years, and as might be expected, there is some desire to go back to "normalcy". Kerry clearly expressed this sentiment in his interview with Larry King: "What American would not trade the economy we had in the 1990s, the fact that we were not at war and young American soldiers were not deployed?". Peggy Noonan has written about Americans' desire for dullness in history.

Lawrence Kaplan writes that we need to realize that no matter how much we want another "holiday from history" - like the one we had during the Clinton years - "history probably has other plans."

As for the international scene, Clinton reduced it to a simple narrative of material progress and moral improvement, the benefits of which would be glimpsed in a New Middle East, an African Renaissance, and a strategic partnership with China. This interregnum, too, came to a close on September 11.

We need to look to the past to see that this is not the first time we desired to escape from the world. And we need to understand that such an escape is not possible.

To paraphrase a memorable Trotsky quotation, Americans may not be interested in the dialectic, but the dialectic is definitely interested in them. As much as we might wish for a return to normalcy, the other side gets the final say.