Is America suffering from a "Delusion of Exceptionalism"?

UC Boulder law professor Paul Campos has penned a worthwhile Op-Ed in the otherwise reliably conservative Rocky Mountain News, entitled "Delusions of Exceptionalism." While it touches on themes that have in years past been explicitly dealt with on this blog, I do have to say Campos has a way of packaging it up in an eloquent form. The topic of his analytic insight is the downside of nationalistic fervor, especially in the not-so-rare occurance here in the US. This is, of course, a very important issue in terms of international relations and the current Administration's track record of arrogance and stubborness on various issues such as Iraq, global warming and globalization have gone a long way to hurting our ability to practice effective stagecraft in bilateral and multilateral negotiations.

Campos begins by identifying the crux of the problem, arguing: "Nationalism is perhaps the most interesting delusion of modern times. Its power is illustrated by the fact that lots of otherwise sensible people are unapologetic nationalists, even though nationalism requires its adherents to subscribe to various bizarre beliefs. For example, the nationalist believes that while other nations act invariably on the basis of self-interest, his country is historically unique, in that it makes great sacrifices for the good of others. This thesis has been put forth with complete seriousness by many a well-credentialed supporter of the Iraq war, such as the historian Francis Fukuyama, who argues that the invasion of that country represented a kind of "virtuous imperialism."

He goes on to explain just how harmful the ideological prevelance of American Exceptionalism has truly been, and how the neocons that have been running US foreign policy for the past eight years - as well as the liberal hawks such as Richard Cohen writing for the Washington Post and Peter Beinhart at The New Republic- have manipulated the public's "patriotism" to serve as a tool to achieve their narrow-minded and dangerous ideologies and goals.

As Campos notes:

I have no doubt that both the neo-cons and their liberal hawk enablers believe that their devotion to neo-imperialism is based not on the crass considerations that have always driven international politics, i.e., power and money, but on a virtuous urge to use whatever means were necessary to bring what Mark Twain referred to as The Person Sitting in Darkness into the light of freedom, democracy, etc., etc.

That every imperial power since the dawn of time has claimed exactly the same thing has not the slightest effect on this touching faith in the purity of our own motives.

I particularly like his use of the term "neo-imperialism", which may be somewhat of a neologism for a mass media newspapers editorial page.

N.B. Despite the fact that I've noted numerous times that I was a qualified supporter of the Iraq War in the early months of 2003 (on humanitarian grounds, not because of the ridiculous "Weapons of Mass Destruction" claims made by the Bushies", I suppose I should note once again that I myself did fall into the same trap as many liberal hawks in thinking the invasion was warranted. In reflection, I realized very quickly just how disastrous and immoral the war and occupation really were not because of how incompetent the administration has been in nation-building and establishing democracy, but because it was a fundamental violation of international law and our continued military presence is not supported by the majority of Iraqi civilians. Of course, the numerous human rights violations, deaths and injuries to both US troops as well as Iraqi civilians are major problems as well, which I have discussed quite substantively in previous posts here.
-SJ