American Idealism Analysis

Iran says it has enriched uranium. Hosni Mubarak is claiming that Shia in Sunni states are traitors to their countries. The French are in political and economic gridlock. With all these urgent things going on, it seems to us that it is time to talk of something important, something that has driven and divided American politics for centuries and will continue to do so: the argument between those who have been called idealists and those who have been labeled realists in U.S. foreign policy.

When the United States was in its infancy, France experienced a revolution that was in many ways similar to the American Revolution. Some Americans wanted to support the French revolutionaries, arguing that the United States had to pursue its moral ideals
They must make decisions, and inaction is very much a decision. George Washington decided that safety trumped political principle and broadly steered clear of the French revolutionary regime. Franklin Roosevelt saw the path to preserving democracy through alliance with Stalin. Nixon swallowed political principle by flying to Beijing. In retrospect, it is very difficult to see how any of them could have chosen differently. A doctrine emerges in looking at these three examples: the pursuit of political principles is possible only when one is willing to look at the long term; the near term requires ruthless and unsentimental compromise.

Had the idealist demand that the United States never work with oppressive nations been honored, Hitler well might have won World War II. The pursuit of democracy that forces the United States beyond its military and political resources ultimately will weaken democracy. Moral demands that are not rooted in political and military reality achieve the opposite of the desired end. But the realist position also has its weakness. Sometimes being ruthless becomes an end in itself. Sometimes the defense of the national interest becomes a justification for defending one's own