Twenty years later...

Say what you will, but Pat Buchanan's basic message hasn't changed since his 1992 run for president.  Had the nation heeded his counsel about disentangling from overseas, we might not be at the economic, social and military breaking point a generation later.

We cannot afford any more neo-imperial nonsense. With trillion-dollar deficits, a soaring national debt, and 10,000 baby boomers reaching eligibility for Social Security and Medicare every day, the US is beginning to break under the strain of its commitments.

What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world but suffer the loss of his soul? A biblical hubris took hold of our republic. By pushing Nato into Russia’s front yard, planting bases in central Asia, dispatching democracy crusaders to subvert regimes in Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia, we undid the good work of Reagan and drove Moscow back into alliance with Beijing. ...

US influence in the Middle East is at a nadir. Our alliances with Turkey and Saudi Arabia are frayed. Pakistan bristles. Israel impatiently dismisses our pathetic pleas for it to stop building settlements. And as the Muslim Brotherhood rose when Hosni Mubarak fell in Cairo, so it looks likely to rise again when Bashar al-Assad falls in Damascus.

We must roll up the empire and put America first again....

Let us cease our interventions and call a halt to our endless hectoring. How other nations rule themselves is not really the US’s business. If there is nation-building to be done, let it begin here. The watchword of the Romney campaign and presidency should be enlightened nationalism. Time, again, to put America first.