Relax, the Republicans' days are numbered

The US State Department is holding a two-day conference this week on the spread of anti-American attitudes around the world. It sounds too good to miss. But miss it most of us will, unfortunately. The closed conference in an undisclosed location is an invitation-only affair restricted to 20 scholars and 50 government officials.
The State Department spokesman Richard Boucher announced last week that the conference on Thursday and Friday would explore "various manifestations and roots of anti-Americanism around the world, what it means for the United States and how the United States may address it". According to Boucher, it is the culmination of a major in-house project on anti-Americanism in Europe, Russia and the Muslim world. Just what Latin America, that historic bastion of anti-Americanism, has done to be excluded is not clear.

It is tempting to make the US government's anxiety to get to grips with the resurgence of anti-Americanism sound deeply sinister. Having once, at a similar gathering, heard Condoleezza Rice, then still an academic, dismiss a list of European, Arab and Asian nations as "the road-kill of history", I think it is fair to assume that some of the generalisations on display this week will not be for the politically squeamish.

At the same time, though, one cannot help but admire that earnest side of US policy-making which insists on the need to confront difficult truths. It is a reminder of an America that has been much overlooked in the last 12 months. Has our Foreign Office ever sat down to discuss why lots of people round the world dislike Britain? I doubt it. It is a big mistake to imagine that Americans have a monopoly on political complacency and insensitivity.

But Americans do not have a monopoly on political wisdom and good judgment either. If something useful is to come out of this week's conference, it should be an increased capacity for intellectual humility and historical awareness on all sides. If US leaders can at last move beyond simplistic goals and slogans in the way they conduct and articulate the war on terrorism, then some good may have come of the debate. And it would help if we on our side were less crude in our own stereotypes too.