But for the Democrats, making foreign policy a foundation for the struggle to win the presidency in 2008 comes up against two immense obstacles. The first is that, by its messianic rhetoric of spreading "freedom" in the world and confronting "evil", the administration has seized control of a national myth that is common to the great majority of Americans, and has most often been expressed in the past by Democrat leaders.

The second obstacle is that, despite this messianic rhetoric, in practice the Bush administration in most parts of the world is pursuing a rather cautious and realist strategy. It is not carrying out the kind of extreme actions that would alarm many ordinary Americans and lead to repeated splits in the Republican party.

The article in its entirety can be found here.

Anatol Lieven is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism (Oxford University Press, 2004)