Yes, after two decades in which U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny— in Bosnia, Darfur, Kuwait, Somalia, Lebanon, Kurdistan, post-earthquake Pakistan, post-tsunami Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan — a narrative that says America is dedicated to keeping Muslims down is thriving.
Hard on the heels of my own confessions concerning Noam Chomsky, it is interesting to read, thanks again to Yglesias, a non-American comment on this bit of fatuousness:
In one sense it is charming that the Cousins retain such a faith in their own idealism; in another it’s infuriating that they so often fail – Friedman being a regular exemplar of this – to appreciate that their idealism is a pretty cloak for America’s self-interest. There would be less wrong with this if America’s great idealism were applied more consistently. But since it isn’t it’s unwise to boast too much about it or to pretend that it’s the only motivation for US foreign policy and that if only this were more perfectly understood all would be well.
Matt then writes that this is "dangerous. It’s one thing to make up fairy tales to amuse the children, but the danger the United States keeps stumbling into is a tendency among our elite to start believing the fairy tales." While it is probably true that Friedman believes quite sincerely every word he has uttered, my guess is those who formulate our foreign policy view such statements with wry amusement, at best. While it need hardly be repeated, any country determines its foreign relations on a careful, but usually quite narrow, understanding of what is in the interest of the United States (as usually defined by corporate elites). The notion that our foreign policy is ever driven by any ideological sense of our own beneficence (the Republican myth of Reagan-era anticommunism) or other motives is belied by our history. That Friedman can write, with anything approaching a straight face, the words above, proves nothing more than he might be a stooge for the powers that be, but little else.
