What propelled the United States to go to war into Iraq and what kept the American Public from realizing its mistake? In my classes here at Cambridge the theme of the “failed war” transcends every lecture - from “History of International Relations over “War and Society” to “US Foreign Policy” - and it is astonishing to see how uniform the view is in academia.

The class “US Foreign Policy” is held by Dr. Stefan Halper. Dr. Halper has worked with several White House administrations and has been Campaigning with several Republic Presidential Candidates. He also wrote several books about US Foreign Policy, his recent one being “The Silence of the Rational Center” which he co-authored with Jonathan Clarke.

The two authors address many issues related to US-Foreign Policy. More specifically, they discuss how, in American Past and Present, Big Ideas framed public opinion, silenced experts, distorted media coverage of events and led to policy decisions which were not always optimal - to say the least.

There are extensive reviews (for instance here and here) of their book. I just want to go into four things that I find very interesting: their assessment of the role of arts in framing the Big Ideas, the impact of the Political Economy to allow Big Ideas to streamline a public debate, the role of media in distorting the public debate, and the role of Think Tanks to evaluate policy decisions resulting from Big Ideas. And finally, I want to say what from the point of view of the Republicans needs to be done to regain a little bit of grounds in the political debate - a thought inspired by a recent visit of Grover Norquist to Cambridge. (more…)