At the risk of trivializing the wonderful ending of Casablanca I would say that Professor Amitai Etzioni's last post might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship between his stand and mine. No one in his right mind would expect Iraq to be democratic soon, but no one in his right mind should abandon the hope to see Iraq democratic. This is the kind of middle ground between realism and idealism that I would willingly embrace.

I do wish, however, to make two points with regard to this middle ground. The first is that we should be wary of realpolitik in the fashion of FDR's retort: "He may be an SOB, but at least he's our SOB." This realpolitik has lead nowhere good in the past and if practiced again it will once more lead the United States into trouble. (Suffice to mention here the United States' backing of the Taliban in the service of its Cold War calculations.) In his book Security First, Professor Etzioni argues for what he calls the Primacy of Life, those fundamental human rights that must inform our alliances and efforts to promote democracy internationally. I would urge him to explicate here the Primacy of Life and its importance in setting out the democratic limits of realistic foreign policies. We might have a dispute concerning the exact list of those fundamental human rights, but we should all agree to their importance; we should all accept them as essential signposts to our conduct in world politics.

My second point is a return to my first post. As humans we have multiple identities and allegiances. There is nothing wrong with that. It is quite understandable that we pursue the national interests of our state. After all, we are citizens, and most of us wish our state only good. In our capacity as citizens it makes perfect sense to debate the interests of the U.S. with regard to Iraq and Afghanistan. It is even the political obligation of the citizens of the U.S. to participate in this public deliberation. Yet, it is also perfectly sensible not to forget that we are also human beings and as such it might be our moral duty to care for the fortunes and misfortunes of the Iraqis and Afghans (some of which, mind you, is a result of the U.S. misconduct!).

This was my point. There is nothing dubious in bifurcating our analysis of the current political situation: We are both citizen and humans (and some other things as well), and each identity carries with it its own sets of obligations, duties, interests, and expectations. Thus, you should not satisfy yourselves--as citizens--with the very important question of what the next American president can and should do. Rather, you should also ask yourselves how--as humans--can you help to secure a more democratic world; a world in which people live in security, in peace, and also democratically.