Since Fareed Zakaria talked last week I have heard very few people say anything bad about his lecture. I am shocked because when I left the lecture I had two problems with what he said. Although his ideas were thought-provoking and eloquent, to me he symbolizes what is wrong with the Democratic Party, meaning that his foreign policy suggestions are the same as conservatives, only they are worded differently.

Zakaria made a few good points concerning the war in Iraq, but any faithful Republican could have made the same; he willingly forgave or breezed through so many foreign relations mistakes. This brings me to the second reason I did not like his speech: he forgave the US empire and the devastating effects its had on South and Central America, claiming that although the US has done bad things, such instances pale in comparison to much worse events in the history of world empires. This is the same formula Dinesh D’souza used in his arguments last year.

The formula is simple: if the US acts on a higher moral plane then the barbarian hordes of Khan, the Ottomans, Romans or British then this means US policy is benevolent. Only when we drop to the levels of immorality demonstrated by previous empires should we be held responsible. This is otherwise known as the ‘lesser of two evils’ belief. I’d like to think that the US can do better then ‘less evil’. Of course he used less controversial language then D’souza but this does not excuse the similarities. I would like to thank the ISO for submitting question cards that pointed out the hypocrisy of his argument. Or at least I think it was the ISO that did so.