Thanks for the invitation to take part in this exchange. I've enjoyed reading the posts and the comments from TPMCafe's readers so far, and I wanted to offer my two cents.

Michael Signer's book is a worth the read for those interested in how to take political theory and relevant examples from history and apply them today's policy challenges. As I saw Michael develop his central thesis and ideas when we were colleagues at the Center for American Progress, the one question that I kept circling back to was: Can the United States actually translate these ideals into policy in 2009 and beyond, especially in challenging places like Iraq and Afghanistan?

I'm in favor of promoting democracy, human rights, and constitutionalism around the world, and I spent several years in places like Egypt, the Palestinian territories, and Iraq engaged in democracy promotion efforts, working with groups outside of the government. These experiences left me with a healthy sense of skepticism about how well the United States actually does in promoting these ideals of democracy and constitutionalism. I'm doubtful that the United States, particularly the United States government, is currently capable of doing a good job at this without implementing major reforms and policy shifts in its overall national security infrastructure, as I argued in this recent paper on democracy promotion efforts in the Middle East. This question of efficacy is particularly important at a time of economic crisis at home and reduced credibility globally, but I think it must be overcome if we are going to get to the root of some of the most pressing national security challenges.

Michael notes in his initial post that "America needs to take the values we've learned so well at home about the worth and power of constitutionalism... to the world." He also says that our country's experience with constitutionalism "should provide a lamp to light the way forward." It's a nice ideal, but what does that actually mean for policy? What actions should the United States take?

Michael asks, "How does constitutionalism fit into the debate about where we should go in Afghanistan?" Afghanistan is the national security question of the moment, but our debate over Afghanistan is narrowly focused on U.S. troop levels in that country. I'm glad Michael is raising the question of constitutionalism in the Afghanistan debate - because the issue points to a challenge existing in many divided societies around the world: how do outside actors help fractious and divided societies build the foundational principles to advance stability? Asking the question at least opens up the possibility of a broader debate that goes beyond troop levels.

But raising this question also serves as a reminder that America's recent record on advancing constitutionalism around the world is not strong. Iraq of course is a distorted example, because America's engagement in Iraq began with an unnecessary war based on false premises and bad information. Once the United States was in Iraq, the efforts to promote democracy and constitutionalism were marred by extreme incompetence and mismanagement, as Larry Diamond outlined in his 2005 book, Squandered Victory. U.S. occupation authorities flew in U.S. constitutional scholars from America to try to help Iraq's leaders craft a plan for developing a constitutional framework for a new Iraq, and these efforts in 2004 and 2005 yielded a constitutional process that remains incomplete.

Today, Iraq's political transition has largely stalled, despite small steps forward like last month's provincial elections. As I wrote in a recent Center for American Progress report, Iraq's leaders remain divided over some of the core foundational questions for their country, and the constitutional reform process - which was set into motion more than three years ago - remains stuck. Iraqi Arabs and Kurds in particular are deadlocked in a battle over Kirkuk and other disputed territories that actually received mention in Article 140 of Iraq's constitution. Article 140 outlined the provisions for resolving these disputes, but this part of the constitution was ignored.

The mindless cheerleading about the 2007 surge of U.S. forces to Iraq "working" ignores that the central objective of the surge - that it would help bridge internal political divisions in Iraq - has not been achieved. This objective remains illusive, in large part because of our conceptualization of the Iraq challenge remains overly militarized, one in which if we just did enough training of Iraqi security forces, stability would magically appear. Unfortunately, the overly militarized nature of our debates is infecting how we view Afghanistan.

In these tough cases, the United States can do a much better job that puts these power-sharing and political questions to the forefront - to think outside of the box and look at concepts like constitutionalism as a means to help societies achieve greater order, which is what Michael's book tries to push us to do. His thesis challenges us to think about national security challenges in a different way than we traditionally do - as challenges that require first and foremost unsustainable expenditures on the military, putting more troops on the ground in other countries, and unilateral Predator drone strikes - in our political debates. Unfortunately, the book could do a much better job at pointing to HOW a new administration would advance the democratic and constitutional ideals expressed.

Part of the answer of how we do this better is linked to making a true commitment to reforming our foreign policy, putting our money where our mouth is when it comes to investing in development assistance and diplomacy, moving beyond the sloganeering of "smart power" to make real institutional reforms in our government, and practicing what we preach when it comes to freedom and democracy. It also means listening more carefully to people in other societies and giving them the freedom to fight their political battles on their own.