David Rieff, with rather casual brilliance, writes the definitive liberal-internationalist response to Michael Scheuer. By way of explaining why Rieff's review of Scheuer's new book, Marching Toward Hell, goes after Scheuer at his core, let's explore the perfection of these two sentences:

And while Scheuer fancies his ruthlessness to be Machiavellian realism, his arguments — innocent as they are of any economic considerations other than America’s dependence on fossil fuels — are pure militarist utopianism. It is as if Scheuer could wish away the fact that the United States exists in a global economic system from which, for all the protectionist hysteria, the country remains a net beneficiary and that would be destroyed by the war he seems so fervently to desire.

Not in the face!

Scheuer's vices basically spring from his virtues, which, despite Rieff's assessment, do exist. His great virtue as a CIA analyst and author is to reject euphemism. (Judging by Rieff's review, that may no longer be true.) Nearly all foreign-policy mandarins blithely assert that America must pursue its vital interests -- without explaining what those are, or what criteria define the appellation "vital." Scheuer doesn't do that. He says America's first-order priority is the destruction of al-Qaeda, and that entails (deep breath) economic/political/military disengagement from the entire Middle East, Russia, China and India; and a ruthless and relentless global counterinsurgency against the existing al-Qaeda forces. Credit goes to Mike for saying what he means.

But that's not a judgment about the wisdom of his positions. The trouble is that Scheuer is too smart not to know that such a radical retrenchment of U.S. global commitments has consequences. So in Imperial Hubris, which really is a great study of al-Qaeda, Scheuer tries to square the circle by going around the bend. Somehow we can get all the oil we need from drilling in ANWR (and FTW when it comes to the, um, rest of the world). I am an economic illiterate, but I did read The Prize, and it cleanly demonstrates the ineradicable volatility of global petroleum markets. To endure so severe a disruption as would occur from Scheuer's desired geopolitical retreat would mean political crises in the U.S. and the first world in general. Then he says he'll vote GOP in 2006 despite the GOP's manifest counterterrorism failures, which he relentlessly skewers.

Finally there's the militarist porn that Rieff identifies. In 2004 I did what I think is the first extensive interview with Scheuer when I guest-hosted TPM and he was still an anonymous CIA analyst. Judge for yourself whether Scheuer has good answers for my questions.

At the risk of predetermining your answer, I'd just like to say that it's far easier, and preferable, to just adjust your theories in response to their absurdity.