Writing for Salon, Andrew Sullivan says:

“At some point, given the increasing desperation of the antiwar polemicists, the code word “imperialism” had to come up. And so it has. In what is to me a deeply clarifying alliance, the hard right and the hard left agree on this: The war on Iraq is an imperialist war. ”

Given Sullivan’s prominence in the warblogging word, it’s hard to believe he’s unaware that the issue of imperialism is being debated by people other than antiwar polemicists. Here, for example, Armed and Dangerous blogger Eric Raymond makes the case for US imperialism, essentially based on the arguments of Stephen den Beste. And here’s a critical response from John Hawkins at Right Wing News.

Outside the blogworld, people like Robert Kagan are making very similar arguments. The idea that the US has a ‘mission civilatrice’ or is taking up the ‘White Man’s burden’ (code phrases from French and British justifications of 19th century imperialism) can easily be read into the statements of the Bush Administration, particularly those of people like Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz.

Given the unwillingness of the Administration to state any clear war aims, and the obvious distaste of the Pentagon for long-term commitments, the question of whether the US is moving to an imperialist stance remains open. Equally, as the posts above make clear, there are legitimate arguments for and against imperialism. But Sullivan is being silly, dishonest or both when he refers to an ‘imperialism canard’, and suggests that this is an invention of anti-war groups.