The case for Democratic Realism

Charles Krauthammer makes a powerful case for "An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World." Anyone who wants to understand the Bush foreign policy (and/or what many call "neocon" foreign policy), whether to endorse it or condemn it, should read this tour d' force. I hesitate to summarize or excerpt, since it should be read in its entirety, but here is a snippet:

Hence, the fourth school: democratic globalism. It has, in this decade, rallied the American people to a struggle over values. It seeks to vindicate the American idea by making the spread of democracy, the success of liberty, the ends and means of American foreign policy.

I support that. I applaud that. But I believe it must be tempered in its universalistic aspirations and rhetoric from a democratic globalism to a democratic realism. It must be targeted, focused and limited. We are friends to all, but we come ashore only where it really counts. And where it counts today is that Islamic crescent stretching from North Africa to Afghanistan.