Re: Con-Fusion

Author: 
Andrew C. McCarthy

Dan, I don't want to wade into a debate over the meaning of "fusion" since I couldn't add anything to what Derb and Jonah have said. On point 2 of your revise-and-extend post, however, I would contend that there is a big difference between, on the one hand, favoring vigorous prosecution of the "War on Terror and its adjunct in Iraq," and, on the other hand, favoring what you call "the fusionist position (as advocated in the pages of National Review) that the success of liberty at home depends, to a certain extent, on the success of liberty abroad."

I believe that our national security calls for eradicating jihadist cells wherever they target the U.S. (i.e., regardless of what country they operate in) and that we should also treat terror-sponsoring regimes as enemies, working for their removal by whatever means best suits our interests. That, to me, would be the correct prosecution of the Bush Doctrine as it was announced right after 9/11. I most certainly do not believe that the success of liberty at home depends on the success of liberty abroad.

The "freedom at home depends on freedom abroad" claim is an unproven and counterfactual theory that the Bush Doctrine unfortunately evolved into for reasons I've been discussing here for a number of years. I appreciate that some of my NR colleagues (and many of my fellow conservatives) are more sympathetic to the Bush "freedom agenda" than I am, but I've never understood the freedom theory to state NR's editorial position. If, as you say, it states some sort of fusionist position, then consider me an anti-fusionist. I'm all for promoting our principles as an example to other countries, but it is not in our national interests to try to sow them into other countries through large-scale, resource-intensive nation-building efforts -- especially in a culture which regards such efforts as hostile acts of occupation and civilizational war, even if we don't mean them that way. 

I do not think, in any event, that this freedom theory states a position that is generally regarded as conservative. The argument that we should strongly defend ourselves against alien enemies who want to kill Americans is certainly a conventional conservative position. The argument that this defense should be accomplished by attempting to spread democracy throughout the Muslim world is not a conservative claim, though it is made by a number of people who surely are conservatives on many issues.