ABSTRACT
After 9/ 11, U.S. foreign policy found a more urgent mission: fighting terrorism. The promotion of democracy did not disappear, but instead it lost what Tony Smith calls its “fortunate vagueness,” or its ability to emerge and disappear without much notice, and became what President George W. Bush declared “the calling of our time.”2 Confident that the United States could make the world safe for democracy, the Bush administration camouflaged the country’s strategic interests and divided the world into those “who are with us” and those “who are against us.” Using lofty rhetoric about America’s duty and desire to extend the blessings of democratic liberalism around the world, the Bush administration relied on military force to coerce and cajole recalcitrant governments in the name of democracy promotion. Unique international circumstances after 9/ 11, combined with a too-rosy view of assumed U.S. power, produced a new imperial
mission. The effect of this assumption was not good for democracy promotion or American credibility.3
