In a poll that is sure to drive the right-wing crazy, the majority of Canadians blame American foreign policy for 9/11. Meanwhile, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin flatly rejected ‘war’ as the answer to Islamic radicalism. Unintentionally, the neo-conservatives have forced a debate on the nature, history, and desirability of American Exceptionalism.

A good place to start this conversation is with Stephen Kinzer’s new book Overthrow.

The book traces the themes of resources, power and ideology to fourteen countries across the globe leading from Hawaii to Iraq in a collection of adventurous, insidious and very human vignettes. Kinzer brings the reader to each situation with a critical eye on who the key players were, why they did what they did, and the usually unexpected and undesirable long-term consequences they created.

One of the most provocative analyses Kinzer carries out is a critique of the American Political Psyche. Kinzer describes the dangerous and easily abused American idea that our foreign interactions are implicitly good, that as far as politics goes, what works for us should work for them, and that we have a right to foreign markets and resources. Kinzer identifies the acts of regime change as the failures of diplomacy before the conflict, and a lack of nation building plans after. These short, violent interventions leads to chaos, violence, poverty, and an anti-Americanism that comes back to bite the US later on, when we again misinterpret nationalism as anti-Americanism.

The Iraq debacle has not yet, but has the real potential to puncture the American Political Psyche. In Donald Rumsfeld’s recent speech before the American Legion, he seemed to anticipate the coming backlash.

Can we truly afford to return to the destructive view that America — not the enemy — is the real source of the world’s troubles?

…The last question is particularly important, because this is the first war of the 21st Century — a war that, to a great extent, will be fought in the media on a global stage. We cannot allow the terrorists’ lies and myths to be repeated without question or challenge.

We also should be aware that the struggle is too important — the consequences too severe — to allow a “blame America first” mentality to overwhelm the truth that our nation, though imperfect, is a force for good in the world.

The Republicans (and most Democrats) are simply unwilling to take Usama bin Laden’s rhetoric at face value. Bin Laden laid out a case for attacking America and American civilians based on our foreign policy, not our freedoms and not our decadence. The argument, at least in the Muslim world, is not over whether or not our foreign policies are good or bad, but over whether using terrorism is a legitimate tool of resistance. And, yet, America seems unwilling to look at our foreign policy (including the historical record), lest it undermine our resolve to wage a war on terror. Look at how Rick Santorum laid it out in his recent Meet the Press debate with Bob Casey, Jr.

SEN. SANTORUM:…And as far as that being a plan to solve this problem, I think you just fundamentally misunderstand the problem. You’re saying that somehow or another the language and terminology doesn’t matter. You believe that we’re going to win or lose this war on the battlefield in Iraq and the battlefield in Afghanistan. I don’t. I think we’ll win or lose this war right here in America. I think we’ll win or lose this war because the American people…

MR. RUSSERT: Let’s, let’s have…

SEN. SANTORUM: Please let me finish—because the American people are not going to stand—are, are, are losing their resolve because of the tactics the terrorists are using. Understand, terrorists understand. What they, what they want to accomplish is every single day to kill people, and every single day make it hard for Americans to open up their papers, or turn on their television and find more death and more destruction. And it’s undermining our ability to prosecute this war.

We need to lay out for the American public what this war is, the fact that we are up against, I think, the greatest challenge of this, of this country’s history.

If we parse what Santorum is saying, he is asserting that the real war is a war to prevent the American people from analyzing the wisdom of our forward-leaning foreign policy. If we begin to see any validity in the grievances set out, not just by Islamic terrorists, but Muslims in general, then the whole edifice of our Empire may begin to crumble.

The problem for the Republicans is that this is a losing battle. We can’t continue to fool the American people indefinitely, nor can we escape the military, economic, and security consequences of our foreign policies. They are very expensive and they are alienating even our closest allies. The Brits are about to throw Tony Blair out of office, where he will join Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi and Spain’s José María Alfredo Aznar López.

Bushism is a spectacular failure, but it could not have been so all-encompassing if it had not jettisoned the aspects of U.S. foreign policy that made our hegemony palatable to the greater world community. The biggest failures have not been military, but diplomatic. The adandoment of the Kyoto process, the tearing up of the ABM treaty, and the total neglect of the peace process in Palestine are among the most glaring policy errors. Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, extraordinary rendition, torture, fishy elections, and increased police powers have all contributed to knocking out the pillars that allowed American Exceptionalism to operate with a good deal of good-will and support.

What we are left with is the dark side of American foreign policy (intervention, coups, support for tyrants and death squads, general neglect of human rights) without the light side (internationalism, collective security, support for democratization and self-determination, and support for human rights). With each passing day, the validity of traditional Marxist, non-aligned, third world, and Islamist critiques is increased.

The GOP response to this is to call such critiques anti-American, foreign propaganda, and to ratchet up the fear factor. This cannot stand.

Either America returns to its former policies that formed the basis for the legitimacy of American Exceptionalism (and does a better job), or the whole international system will re-align on us, with ugly and unpredictable consequences for our nation, our allies, and the world economy.

It’s begins with self-reflection. What have we done? Why have we done it? What do we need to continue to do, and what can we safely cease doing?

America earned the good-will we enjoyed in the post-war era. We are not earning anything but ill-will at the moment. We must reflect on our past, sanely evaluate our present, and decide whether we want to be a beacon of light or a international pariah.

Contrary to Rumsfeld and Santorum’s assertions, rhetoric will not decide this. We cannot spin our way out of the hole we have dug for ourselves. If America still has the characteristics that made it great, it will throw out the government that has failed us, call their crimes, crimes, and set right what has been torn asunder.