Two paragraphes of "America's Foreign Policy Trap"

1. There's a lot to recommend this view. For starters, it gets jihadism right. Al-Qaeda-style terrorism does stem more from state breakdown than state power. ( Compare pre-and post-Saddam Iraq. ) The weak-state concept also makes Democratic foreign policy broader than its Repoblican equivalent. In Buh-esque speeches earlier this year, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani tried- unconvinceingly- to cram virtually all of American foreign policy into the war on terror. Weak states,by contrast, offer Democrats a prism that isn't confined to the Islamic world.

2. In the monthes to come, the Democratic front runners will make more foreign policy speeches. Let's hope they each devote a whole one to China and large chunks of others to India, Russia and Japan. How the U.S. handle these powers will help determine how dangerous the world becomes in the coming years and whether the U.S. remains its lone superpower. That deserves more than a throwaway line.