Bashing the critics of their foreign-policy agenda as “isolationists” has become the last refuge of military interventionists and global crusaders. The tactic helps sidetrack the debate by putting the onus on their opponents — those skeptical of “regime change” here, there and everywhere — to disprove the charge that they want Americans to shun the rest of the world.
And now proponents of maintaining American military hegemony in the Middle East have been applying a similar technique, accusing those who call for a debate on US interests and policies in that region of advocating retreat and appeasement.
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The US could continue to act as the ‘balancer of last resort’ in the Middle East, working together with regional and global powers to help strengthen stability and promote economic prosperity in the region. But it cannot and should not sustain the current status quo there anymore.