I've written at some length about the need for a coherent, long-term vision of the United States and her role in the world.  And I do believe that is essential.  However, we must always remember that it is all too easy for "long-term vision" to become "tunnel vision," and thus to solve one set of problems by creating others.

The Truman Doctrine is commonly cited as an example of a successful, long-term vision.  As World War II ended, Harry Truman picked up on groundwork laid by FDR and George Marshall, and outlined a long-term vision for the United States.  The Truman Doctrine had two central objectives.  First, the U.S. should prevent another devastating major power war in Europe.  Second, the U.S. should contain Soviet expansion and preserve free markets for global economic development.

In the service of that two-fold doctrine, a host of tools were created, including: the United Nations; the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (the institutions that implemented the Marshall Plan); the NATO and SEATO alliances; a forward-based, conventional military capable of fighting a mechanized battle in Germany (the "Fulda Gap Tripwire"); and, a retaliatory nuclear force capable of devastating the Soviet Union if our conventional force failed.

In terms of its stated objectives, the Truman Doctrine succeeded.  The combination of the Marshall Plan and our forward-based military -- in effect a long-term occupation made palatable by the Soviet threat -- quelled Franco-German resentments and provided the stability that enabled the body of economic treaties that ultimately birthed the European Union.  And the "Fulda Gap Tripwire," while ultimately replaced by the strategy of "Mutually Assured Destruction," did deter Soviet expansion west of the Elbe.

But it would be a mistake to view the Truman Doctrine as an unqualified success.  For that long-term vision gave way to tunnel vision.  American leaders viewed every world event -- wherever it occurred and whatever its intrinsic impulses -- in terms of the "communist threat."  Even the civil rights movement in the United States was suspect, as J. Edgar Hoover's attempts to portray Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a "communist instigator" reveal.  The Arab-Israeli Wars of 1948-1972, the wars of reunification in Korea and Vietnam, the rise of anti-colonial independence movements in the Middle East and Africa, and the economic justice movements in Central and South America ... all were perceived through the lens of the Truman Doctrine ... all were seen as proxy fights with the Soviet Union.

This tightly-constrained view of world events blinded us to emerging dangers, and rationalized blatantly counter-democratic U.S. policies at home and abroad.  "He's a despot, but he's our despot" became an accepted premise for upholding oppressive regimes.  Perceived communist ties were sufficient to justify funding military coups de etat or terrorist organizations to destabilize elected regimes whose policies we found disagreeable.  The Marshal Plan for the redevelopment of war-torn Europe and Japan morphed a policy of global economic imperialism fueled by the petrodollar monopoly.

This short-sighted view led directly to the challenges we now face.  Yes, the Soviet Union crumbled and communism was discredited as an economic policy.  But in defeating one enemy, we created dozens of others.  Worse, our misappreciation of events during the Cold War led us into an ill-conceived policy in Vietnam which revealed a blueprint for defeating the vaunted U.S. military: long-term guerilla warfare.  The Soviet misadventure in Afghanistan hammered home the lesson and gave Osama Bin Laden first-hand experience:  no foreign military, no matter how powerful, can win a guerilla war on foreign soil.

In 1989, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Truman Doctrine was replaced by the Cheney Manifesto.  Originally articulated in a policy paper commissioned by then Secretary of Defense Cheney, it emerged in more complete form in the Project for a New American Century.  And unlike the inherently defensive Truman Doctrine, which sought to prevent another major power war in Europe and to contain Soviet expansion, the Cheney Manifesto is offensive in nature.

The Cheney Manifesto envisions the United States as the the world's only relevant power, unchallenged and indeed unchallengeable.  In this vision, if the U.S. views some foreign leader as illegitimate, we have the unilateral right to order his removal.  If his people cannot remove him, we have the right to do it for them.  The petrodollar monopoly -- created as a bulwark against runaway inflation fueled by Vietnam-era spending -- is a fundamental right of the United States as the world's master.  Any would-be challenger to U.S. dominance must be reduced through destabilization, economic strangulation, or outright military force.

And, because "freedom and democracy" are portrayed as uniquely American virtues, American global dominance itself becomes a virtue.  When the United States invades a foreign country and topples its government, we are not "conquerors" but "liberators."  Lincoln's famous admonition that "a nation cannot endure half-slave and half-free," has been paraphrased all week by GOP House members, not in reference to our own nation but to entire world.  Under the Cheney Manifesto, the American Civil War -- fundamentally a war of aggression -- can be repeated as necessary.  We are entitled to launch new Shermans on marches to the sea, laying waste to new Atlantas and anything else in their paths, if that will cripple "the enemy's" will to resist.  The "consequences of failure" are too great, and thus the ends justify any means, up to and including the use of nuclear weapons to prevent nuclear proliferation.

And who is "the enemy?"

Just as the Truman Doctrine afflicted us with a tunnel vision through which any opposition was seen as communist-inspired, the Cheney Manifesto gives us a new tunnel vision: "Islamofacists."  In this "clash of civilizations," every threat, every challenge, is a manifestation of radical Islam.  The Somalis who defended their homes against U.S. forces seeking to kidnap Mohammed Aidid are now described as "Islamic radicals" and their defense of their homes is termed "an Al Qaeda-led terrorist attack on U.S. peacekeeping forces."  When Sunnis and Shi'a use the breakdown of law and order in Iraq to settle decades or centuries old scores between themselves, both sides are "the forces of radical Islam."  Even Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, in opposing continued U.S. economic imperialism in the Western Hemisphere, becomes "an agent of and supported by Al Qaeda."

The Cheney Manifesto, however well-intentioned some of its initial supporters might have been, has given rise to a new national glaucoma.  And unlike the Truman Doctrine, it offers no countervailing benefits save for our national profligacy.

Wes Clark offers a very different vision for America.  We should embrace that vision, but Wes himself would warn us not to embrace it so tightly that it induces a new tunnel vision.  Ultimately, we must learn to see the complexities of the world for what they are, to maintain clear eyes and resist the glaucoma-inducing lenses of oversimplification.  To quote a famous Jewish proverb:  "If every man takes an eye for an eye, soon the whole world is blind."

Crissie