Sands of Empire: Missionary Zeal, American Foreign Policy, and the Hazards of Global Ambition by Robert W. Merry

Sands of Empire: Missionary Zeal, American Foreign Policy, and the Hazards of Global Ambition by Robert W. Merry Is an analysis of American foreign policy and history. Merry argues that there's been several streams of thought in American foreign policy they are the idea of progress which led to Francis Fukuyama's end of history thesis, liberalism interventionism championed by Woodrow Wilson, the neoconservatives basically imperialists and finally Huntington's clash of civilizations. The analysis is actually pretty good discussing various obscure theorists and nicely in capsulizing their arguments. The problem is when we get to the discussion of real-world events.

Merry believes in the clashe of civilizations. Which leads to some bizarre conclusions. One of the large sections of the book is on the Balkans. According to the author NATO and the United States should not have been involved and if anything should have been much more supportive of the Serbs. Merry does acknowledge the war crimes but does not seem to comprehend the level of outrage they produced in the US and Western Europe. Going forward America should support anybody as long as they are willing to suppress Islamist forces. Funny I think that's what got them into this mess in the first place. Saudi Arabia should be ignored instead Iran should be cultivated. There's no reference to the Israeli position on this. The book concludes with some ranting about Islamic immigration.

It's too bad first 100 pages were superb.

Recommended for the discussion of the different positions except for the clash of civilizations which is not dealt with in a particularly evenhanded way.

Is available through Abebooks.