Russell Arben Fox points us to a debate between scholar Michael Berube and what he calls “the Z Magazine/Counterpunch Left.” In a nutshell, the Z/CP crowd, notably iconclastic leftist crank Alexander Cockburn (and I say that affectionately as someone who enjoys Cockburn’s writing), accuses Berube and other left-liberals of being insufficiently pure in their devotion to anti-interventionism, while Berube charges the Z/CPers with making a fetish out of national soveriegnty (e.g. in their opposition to the wars in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan in addition to the Iraq war; Berube opposed the Iraq war but supported the other two) and dubs them “the Sovereignty Left.” The point being, I take it, that it’s odd for leftists, who are supposed to be internationalists, to elevate the principle of national sovereignty to some kind of absolute, especially considering that most actually existing nation-states are controlled by the kinds of pernicious elites that leftism purportedly stands against. Meanwhile, the Z/CP-style response is that they’re not “pro-sovereignty” so much as they’re anti-imperialist. It has all the classic features of a intra-sectarian left-wing ideological battle. Russell also adds his own thoughts on the whole kerfuffle.

Now, interesting as this all is, I have to say there is a certain surreal quality to this debate. What you have is various species of left-winger arguing about how best the U.S. government can serve the interests of foreigners in faraway lands. Should we leave them alone or selectively intervene to protect human rights? In the whole debate there is little or no discussion of the interests of Americans.

I speculate that this is part of the reason that a lot of leftish ideas never gain any traction with most Americans. Polls consistently show that many Americans favor left-of-center policies, especially on economic issues, but if left-wing intellectuals frame their policies in terms of benefitting humanity at large rather than their fellow citizens, it’s only natural that most people, who, after all, think most about the well-being of themselves and their families, their communities, and their own country and certainly put it ahead of the interests of the citizens of other countries, will tune them out. Right or wrong, most people seem to exist within concentric circles of concern that diminish in intensity the farther they get from kith and kin.

There was, to my mind, a perfectly good case agains the Iraq war that took American self-interest as the primary, if not sole, criterion: there was no demostrable or imminent threat from Iraq; the consequences of going to war were unpredictable; we had our hands full with the pursuit of al-Qaeda, etc. A variation on the same could be said about most of the USA’s other military interventions over the years. The bar for spending one’s own blood treasure ought, logically, to be high. This doesn’t mean that moral concerns aren’t also important, but if you don’t even reach the bar of self-interest then there’s no need to worry about the moral veto on your proposed action.

And I personally think there are good reasons, at least at the national level, to take this kind of broadly self-interested view combined with what I would call moral side constraints on how we can treat others. To put it another way, what philosophers call “positive duties” are largely concerned with obligations to kith and kin, while “negative duties” (e.g. do no harm) extend to everybody. So, it’s entirely proper that a nation’s foreign policy be conducted primarily with the aim of protecting its own citizens, as long as in so doing it doesn’t inflict injustice on others. Some liberals and leftists have a hard time making peace with this idea, since it flies in the face of universalist and cosmopolitan tendencies that are deeply rooted in those outlooks (though more among intellectuals than actual politicians, most of whom tend to be unabashedly nationalist). But whether or not it’s a morally correct position, it’s important to recognize that it’s one that many, perhaps most, Americans hold. (It’s worth pointing out that there’s a species of internationalist universalism among some neoconservatives on the right that seems just as out of touch with sound patriotic concern for the well-being of one’s own country.)

My point is simply this: whatever your idea of a saner American foreign policy is, it should first and foremost be a pro-American policy. I think this both because it’s the first duty of a government to look after its own citizens, but also because it’s the only policy that’s likely to actually sell.