The political "base" is not interested in anything other than Iraq, that's why it's not being covered by the candidates. Check what the readers are interested in at TPM (besides you, of course), DailyKos or Democratic Underground for evidence. The MSM often has gotten the blame for this in the past, but I see ever more clearly everyday on the internet that their Neilsen numbers taht tell them it's of no interest except to a very small audience, unless there's a war going on with the U.S.A. involved. There is no Ted Turner out there anymore to force it on the general public and make them interested, sorry.

McCain as the GOP candidate at will force it some in the general debates. (It is interesting in that regard that you see a lot more foreign news interest at freerepublic.com than you do on the Democratic sites, as well as on Fox News as opposed to MSNBC and CNN-- interventionists and American exceptionialists are more interested in foreign policy by their very nature.)

I should add that I don't agree with those who make this an American problem: yes I do believe that the masses in China or Latin America don't care much about foreign policy or news either, all politics is local basically rules worldwide.

I can't aupport Etzioni's priorities here. The goal of our foreign policy is not to "protect lives," it is to "protect American lives." We can argue about what that means. It certainly seems to mean not letting new Afghanistans develop and fester but it also means that we can't just accept Etzioni's word that we have to do something in Rwanda or Darfur. The farthest I'd go on that front is that we should do something about Darfur so long as we don't risk American lives in doing so. Everybody says we failed in Rwanda. But would sending US troops into the middle of a civil war been a smart thing?

There's another principle that Etzioni should address or at least consider -- the welfare of the American people should be the first priority of the American government. So domestic spending should be the priority. Should we spend billions in Darfur while people are losing their homes in the states?

The world, especially the international arena, is a tragic place,

Hogwash. The world is a wonderful place, full of good people doing good things. You need to get out more.

Americans are by nature a young, can do, positive thinking, optimistic lot.

The American people are far ahead of the politicians. They don't care about' foreign involvement plans because they are against foreign involvement in general, in favor of domestic concerns. They naturally tend toward George Washington's view as stated in his farewell address:

"The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connexion as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop."

First priority should be accorded to the protection of life. Not just ours, but that of all human beings.

American foreign interventions, since the turn of the last century, from The Philippines to Central America to Vietnam and Iraq, have cost lives and not protected them. There is no evidence that US involvement in Rwanda, Sudan and the Congo would have been any different.

Security is the first priority

Defense of the US is Job One so long as it doesn't include hoked-up pre-emptive strikes and foreign invasions.

export security, not democracy

Define "security." Current US usage is that people who are "strong on national security" are war-mongers.

to the extent the next administration will make the promotion of peace rather than regime change its first priority, major progress on this front can be hoped for.

Yes, without US intervention in other countries. Those that state that the US Army troops are Peacemakers or Peacekeepers usually mean the peace of the dead. As you state: interventions often do not help.

"On the same ground, when a state is truly threatening another with weapons of mass destruction, it should be prevented from attacking as international law has long recognized."

--If a country is definitely going to attack, then international law has recognized a very narrowly defined right to preempt. The definition of "truly threatening" matters so much after Bush's WMD stunt.

--The Caroline and Nicaragua cases established that anticipatory self-defense(preemption) is only legitimate "when the danger is so great as to leave no alternative." The "imminent" threat that's preempted must be "instant, overwhelming and leave no choice of means and no moment of deliberation."

"The fact that the Bush Administration abused this principle will make it difficult to come up with complete evidence that an attack is imminent."

--Nothing Bush has done will make it harder to turn up accessible, real evidence in future cases. Hopefully people won't be too skeptical if faced with real evidence. The thin, silver lining of Bush having manipulated WMD facts is that it will be harder for anyone to do that again.

"However this should not be understood to mean that from now on nations have to give up the right to self-defense. Even Arab nations were mum when Israel attacked a facility in Syria..."

--Just because Arab nations were "mum" does not mean that they determined that Israel acted in self defense. "Self defense" by Israel would mean that Syria attacked Israel and Israel then defended itself. What you are really talking about here is illegal preemption, or undisclosed preemption of an imminent attack by Syria, or else an act of war as Hirsch concluded. The reaction of nearby countries doesn't change the fact that there is a difference between legal self defense and an illegal act of war.

I agree that there is only so much we can do. I agree that as painful as it is, we have to set priorities. As a previous comment noted, we ought to prioritize is the welfare of Americans. So many problems have piled up here at home. It seems obvious we should avoid foreign entanglements unless there is a clearly productive and limited role we can afford to play.