THE MAVERICK IS RIGHT – AT 8:46 A.M. ET:  Good for John McCain!  He's speaking out against the isolationist drift within some elements of his own party.  We heard hints of that in the debate Monday night.  From The Politico:

Via Playbook, John McCain raps the Republican presidential field for what he sees as an isolationist strain that's emerging as the candidates shift away from strict hawkishness on foreign policy, and which cropped up at the New Hampshire debate last Monday.

From the pre-taped interview with "This Week:"

McCAIN: “Well, I was more concerned about what the candidates in New Hampshire the other night said. This is isolationism. There's always been an … isolationist strain in the Republican Party — that Pat Buchanan wing of our party. But now it seems to have moved more center stage, so to speak. … If we had not intervened, Gadhafi was at the gates of Benghazi. He said he was going to go house to house to kill everybody. That's a city of 700,000 people. What would be saying now if we had allowed for that to happen?”

AMANPOUR: “Well, you were one of the key supports. And what you're talking is all the Republicans on the stage of that debate on Monday seeming to waver from what's a traditional Republican position on national security.”

McCAIN: “Yes, I wonder what Ronald Reagan would be saying today.”

AMANPOUR: “What would he be saying today? If he heard, for instance, Michele Bachmann or Mitt Romney?”

McCAIN: “He would be saying: That's not the Republican Party of the 20th century, and now the 21st Century. That is not the Republican Party that has been willing to stand up for freedom for people for all over the world, whether it be in Grenada — that Ronald Reagan had a quick operation about — or whether it be in our enduring commitment to countering the Soviet Union.”

McCain is correct.  One can, of course, legitimately differ about particular operations, and some may go very wrong, or take longer than we'd believed.  But isolationism was a catastrophic failure in the 1930s, and will be a failure again.  It simply allows the thugs of this world to build their power unimpeded, and eventually unleash it on us or our allies.  It is especially dangerous when dealing with an ideology-based enemy, such as militant Islam, whose goals never change.

It is active, constant American involvement, sometimes at great cost, that allowed the United States, along with some allies, to win the Cold War without a world war.  And it is the active involvement of the United States since 9-11 that has, in my view, prevented another successful attack on the United States.  Yes, it's frustrating.  Yes, it's risky, and yes, it costs a fortune.  But what would the world be without the United States, and our willingness to carry a heavy load?  Madeleine Albright, whom we usually don't quote here, was correct when she called us "the indispensable nation."

June 19, 2011