There are really only two possible general approaches concerning American power in the world: isolationism and involvement. And despite my jokes in post like this one, I'm one of those people who are very tempted to just tell the world to have a nice day, and focus on our domestic issues.

Why spend American blood and money in order to be hated for it?

Regarding involvement, if you're going to be concerned with powers like North Korea, China, Sudan, and Iran, simply talking is NOT the best option. It's immoral to sit around "negotiating" with terrorists in one room, for days on end, while you know they are shooting one hostage every two hours in the next. You are deluded about their nature and methods, and you are one of the proverbial "good men" who sat around and did nothing, allowing evil to succeed.

Sitting around and talking, with no credible military "stick" looming in the background, is not "involvement." The US is not needed for that -- Denmark or Belgium could do it just fine without us.

Sometimes I want to criticise the current administration: to say we need a clear mandate before we get involved. In short, I want to see Europe begging us to be involved in the Iranian talks (etc.). I also think we should periodically take a vote in Iraq, and yes, the US, to see if we should abandon Iraq. If either one votes "no", then out we go. And they need to manage the public message much better than they have.

And some of that view make sense (the voting and PR bits especially) but some of it doesn't: History shows us that a Hitler will have to overrun most of Europe before anyone notices a major problem -- and that people can easily excuse and view as "normal" the Soviet domination of half of it afterwards. Such is the nature of human pride and denial.

So we're left with a world with no easy answers. We are hated, and bloodied, by our involvement, and yet isolationism would surely leave the world in an even worse state.

But let's at least be honest about the terms of debate, and be consistent in our criticism. If you, on the left, argued against the way Bush was conducting the war in Iraq by quoting disgruntled generals (who argued Rumsfeld didn't use enough force) then you have no business in recommending a withdrawal; that's simple hypocrisy. You cannot base American foreign policy on whatever argument gets you into power today.

And on the right, those of us who advocated American involvement in Iraq, need to be honest about our own responsibility. At the start of the Iraq war, surveys showed a majority -- some, up to 80% -- favoring going in. Now 60% or more feel the other way. If so, that means a lot of people -- some of whom were clearly conservatives -- have changed their minds.

Fine: but if we pull out, as surely as the blood of those killed in this war is partially on my head, the blood and suffering of those who will be killed in the aftermath will be partially on yours. As will the complete loss of credibility due to yet another promise broken by America, yet another ally abandoned to die, alone and unsupported, because support wasn't politically expedient any longer. Did OBL gain from the American pullout in Mogadishu? This will be like a thousand Mogadishus for such enemies.

I think back to the hundreds of thousands killed in Vietnam after we left, and the mythical "domino" of Cambodia, which really fell, just as predicted, after with left the region to itself, killing another 1.7 million. Because we didn't want to cross a border. Because we didn't want to cut off supply lines. Because Ted Kennedy worked to cut all funding for the South's self-defense.

I don't think many people who demanded we leave Vietnam have thought soberly about their responsibility regarding those millions of deaths, and the decades of oppression that followed.

Let's not make the same mistake again.