Listening to Europeans try to psycho-analyze the United States is great sport.   After all these centuries they still don't understand us.   A case in point is the work entitled "America Right or Wrong" by Anatol Lieven who sees a "nationalist, messianic dark side of America."   Lieven sees America as overextended, riding for a fall and unable to "fulfill its present goals of basically dominating everywhere."   Lieven looks back to early America, then President Andrew Jackson and sees the development of a "messianic belief America can do no wrong."   He sees the divide between the East Coast intelligentsia and the rest of the country (really a divide between east and west coast liberals and the rest of the country) as a manifestation of those with the messianic view and those with intelligence.   He claims the present administration - run by folks from "frontier states" - somehow embraces the messianic vision which causes the U. S. to be aggressive internationally and attempt to dominate the rest of the world.   Indeed the "America is always right" credo is an important foundational piece of the administration's self-image.   He sees "neo-cons" as the chief profits of the American evil messianic view which will eventually bring the country down.   But the truth is both far simpler and yet far more complex than this simple psycho-analysis.

It was not the United States who once attempted to dominate the world through an intricate web of colonial outposts.   That was the French, Portuguese, Germans, Spanish, Dutch, English, the Europeans.   True the Japanese, Russians, and others have histories which include attempts at world domination through military conquest and control.   The one historical "super-power" which does not is the United States.   We have engaged in wars whose goals have been to alter the political framework of countries, even regions, but we have never conquered and installed American long-term governance over any conquered region.   We have conquered governments and controlled regions for a time but we also hand the keys to the place back to natives.   The Europeans and other empire builders have almost always done so only after being physically coerced.   Europeans gave up on Asian and Middle East colonies only after rebellion.   America never plans for long-term colonial rule.   Such is the case as much today with respect to Afghanistan and Iraq as it was with Japan in the 1940s and 50s.

Europeans, including Lieven, for all their attempts to understand the psychology of America miss its essence.   The United States began as, has always been, and continues to be an essentially pragmatic endeavor.   Everything in the country's history and actions stems from pragmatism.   We embrace an ideology only so long as we see it working.   We eschew such fantasy as socialism and communism because it does not work rather than because we find it intellectually offensive.   We go out and make war only in an attempt to protect ourselves and our interests.   We believe in some fundamental philosophical underpinnings but they do not frame our actions in a vacuum.

The Brit.s, French and others made a mess of the Middle East and nearby Asia long ago.   They created an environment well suited to the reforestation of the land by anarchy once they removed their colonies.   They also persecuted an entire people via the folly of organic nationalism.   It was left largely up to pragmatic Yanks to clean up the mess.

In the process of cleaning up the European, post World War II mess, the United States in conjunction with the other vitors found that the best way to restore some security to the persecuted people - the Jews - was to restore the country and land they had occupied before Europeans kicked them out.   Arabs didn't like that idea and therefore made war and created a labyrinth of lies, even creating a mythical people called the Palestinians, to justify a struggle against it.   That struggle is at the core of the Islamic fundamentalist movement which continues to make war today.   That simple cause is at the root of why a bunch of men flew airplanes into an office and killed civilians.

European imperialists kick Jews out of homeland because Jews rebel against colonial authority.   Jews scatter to all corners of the world but concentrate in European ghettos where locals segregate them from the general population.   Europeans compete for domination of the world eventually attempting genocide of the Jews and engaging in war which draws the United States into giving most of its resources and much of its young men.   United States and other victors decide to recreate Israel.   Arabs decide they don't like that but can't defeat the Jews on the battle field so they create a "Palestinian people" out of whole cloth and engage in efforts to establish a Palestinian state as a ruse to push the Jews into the sea.   United States arms Israel and makes in nearly impossible for Arabs to succeed.   Small groups of Arabs go underground in attempt to terrorize Israel into collapsing.   When that doesn't work, Arabs begin terrorizing world to publicize the plight of the "Palestinian people."   When that doesn't completely work, Arabs begin attacking Israel's biggest ally, the United States.   United States attacks rogue states to put a stop to escalating attacks.   That's what happened here.   There is no attempt for some sort of American pan-colonial effort at world domination.

Anatol Lieven is wrong about America as so many other Europeans have been.   America is essentially pragmatic.   We never engage in anything for long unless it proves effective.   There is no messianic belief in anything except that pragmatism works!   It isn't about being "right or wrong."   That is overly simplistic thinking.   It is about what works best given the circumstances thrust upon us by centuries of European world domination.