If the war against radical Islamism must ultimately be a war for liberalism, the West's own history should be taken as cautionary. Liberalism didn't suddenly appear "one scorching July day in France in 1789," Leon Wieseltier...told me. It was a "violent rupture" after centuries of conflict within Western theocracy and autocracy. Liberalism is, by definition, difficult and destabilizing. It shouldn't be undertaken with missionary zeal. The attempt to bring it to the theocratic and autocratic Middle East from outside, by force, on the simple faith that people everywhere long to be free, end of story--this was a profoundly unliberal idea. "If there's one thing that liberalism has no time for, it's an eschatological view," Wieseltier said. "Liberalism is an essentially anti-eschatological view of the world. And now that various people have woken up to the rough political and philosophical realities of most of the world, the idea that the United States must send it troops everywhere to fix the world once and for all is stupid. They want a final answer. They want it over. And there is no final answer. There's slow, steady, fitful progress toward a more decent and democratic world."
The Republicans have made the world liberalism such a dirty word, know one remembers what it really means. So here is what Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary says:
liberalism
[...]
a often capitalized : a movement in modern Protestantism emphasizing intellectual liberty and the spiritual and ethical content of Christianity
b : a theory in economics emphasizing individual freedom from restraint and usually based on free competition, the self-regulating market, and the gold standard
c : a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties
d capitalized : the principles and policies of a Liberal party
The first definition talks about the freedom of thought despite the apparent constricting dogma of Christianity. That sounds an awful lot like Freedom of Religion. The second is an economic perspective that any self-respecting Republican would agree with. Finally, the philosophy is consistent with the constitution as stated in its Preamble.
As George Packer points out, democracy can't be exported without changing the fundamental nature of the cultures involved. Respect and optimism for humanity doesn't spontaneously awaken from a dictatorship. It takes time to nurture and grow, and decades to mature. The utter stupidity and naivety of Wolfowitz is mind boggling.
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