You know something is up when Republicans start taking the lead in questioning our decade-long war in Afghanistan, and, indeed, something is up: a propitious confluence of circumstances and events, the most dramatic of which is the assassination of Osama bin Laden by US Special Forces. In hearings held the other day, Senator Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) said he thinks the Afghan occupation is no longer justified
Kudlow is an economist with some understanding of the fiscal crisis we face: he sees the choice between empire and solvency and the necessity of making it sooner rather than later. As this sense of urgency gains traction and spreads, from the libertarian and "paleoconservative" precincts in which it has previously flourished, the GOP establishment will be forced to deal with the rising insurgency in their own ranks. A recent CNN poll shows that of the declared Republican candidates for President, Ron Paul – an anti-interventionist of a sort who often makes me look moderate – unveils the new political reality:
Paul appeals to both hardcore Tea Party types and independents who viscerally distrust the GOP, and this is in large part due to his emphasis – even when he’s talking about economic matters – on the foreign policy factor, what he calls "the Empire" with a quintessentially American hint of disdain for all things imperial. He has spent the last decade or so telling Americans we’re a bankrupt empire, and now that the reality of this has dawned Paul is getting a Strange New Respect. The neocons and professional Paul-haters (or do I repeat myself?) will no doubt focus on the Strangeness aspect of this, but they are living in the past.
The debate over Afghanistan – and our continued presence in Iraq, for that matter – is really about a larger issue: what kind of country are we? Are we a republic, where the power of government is constrained by a written Constitution, which fights only in self-defense — and only against those who initiate coercion? Or are we an empire, the guarantor of peace and order in the world, the final arbiter and global hegemon whose "responsibility" and "destiny" is to establish a New Rome?
