This is nonsense if you consider what we are blamed for doing and what we are blamed for not doing, as Robert Kagan notes.
France, since it is not a global power, gets a free ride in the global press for what it does in West Africa that earns France hatred in that region. Sadly, the Africans don't appreciate the nuanced sophistication of French foreign policy that marks it as superior to American foreign policy according to some on our Left. If I may be so bold, actual French policy in many ways reflects the false image of our foreign policy that our Left holds so dearly.
Yet still we strive to make the world a better place, as a nation and as individuals. Secretary Rice put it well:
The weight of international leadership is not borne easily. But we in America are more than equal to this challenge and we must be. For as we imagine a world without American leadership, we are led inescapably to this solemn conclusion. If America does not serve great purposes, if we do not rally other nations to fight intolerance and to support peace and to defend freedom, and to help give all hope who suffer oppression, then our world will drift toward tragedy. The strong will do what they please. The weak will suffer most of all and inevitably, inevitably, sooner or later the threats of our world will strike once again at the very heart of our nation. So together, let us continue on our present course. Let us reaffirm our belief that in the words of Thomas Jefferson "The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time."
Let us draw inspiration from impatient patriots in other lands who struggle onward only with their love of freedom and their faith in deliverance. And finally, more than anything, let us resolve to deal with the world as it is, but never to accept that we are powerless to make it better than it is. Not perfect, but better.
As Kagan concludes:
No one should lightly dismiss the current hostility toward the United States. International legitimacy matters. It is important in itself, and it affects others' willingness to work with us. But neither should we be paralyzed by the unavoidable resentments that our power creates. If we refrained from action out of fear that others around the world would be angry with us, then we would never act. And count on it: They'd blame us for that, too.
If we stand by our ideals and our national interests, we can't go too wrong. Trying to please others is sheer folly. It just cannot be done. And I for one do not consider it a foreign policy triumph if Charleston is nuked and the French get all weepy and exclaim (for a few days, anyway) "we are all Americans, now."
Yet this doesn't mean we don't try to explain what we do. It doesn't mean we have to just accept the world's damnation of us at every turn. It doesn't mean we don't soften our public words even as we look to our own interests.
And hopefully, it doesn't mean that we tell the rest of the world to go to Hell because we are sick of their irrational complaints. If we do that, we can be sure that much of the world will be damned to a far worse fate.
And we, too, will be worse off. We must deal with the world as it is and not as we wish it to be.
