With America’s image torn internationally and literally ripped apart in the Arab world, we’ve now got to decide where we go from here. To do that, however, we have to understand what got us here in the first place. Where and why did the tear begin? I believe the first small tear occurred early in the Bush administration, with the abandonment of the Kyoto negotiations on climate change and U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Those events announced the beginning of a new, unilateralist foreign policy — one long advocated by conservatives who distrusted international cooperation and agreements as limitations on America’s pursuit of its own interests. The American colossus, the greatest power on Earth, was throwing its weight around, and it made people in other countries nervous.