America has always held the liberal principles of liberty, freedom and ‘pursuit of happiness as its core principles for realizing the ‘American Dream’. America’s avowed policy of ‘spreading democracy everywhere’ has been the galvanizing element of its foreign policy. Today, America stands by the liberal theory and has always taken steps to encourage liberalism across the globe. America has spoken against and acted against non-liberal states at the geopolitical level and in some cases taken military action as was in the case of Iraq.
American commitment to liberalism was proactive during the republican administrations of Ronald Reagan and both Bush administrations. The present administration’s ardor for liberalism is tempered with realism. In Iraq, the administration is shifting the onus of security to the Iraqi authority including responsibility for strengthening their own democratic structures. In Afghanistan, the democratic government of Hamid Karzai is propped basically by American might and realism in using Pakistan, a state harboring and training terrorists as an ally to fight the Al Qaeda.
Elsewhere, the Obama administration’s approach to liberalism is to engage in multilateralism and use diplomacy to achieve liberal objectives worldwide. Hence, the overtures to Iran, giving the Palestinian side a sympathetic hearing, using Track II diplomacy to deal with North Korea as was typified by the recent visit of former President Bill Clinton to North Korea to secure the release of two American journalists. The American administration has stopped preaching to China regarding human rights violation, Tibet issue and Taiwan. The personal outreach by Barack Obama to the Muslim world shows a liberalist agenda tempered with realism unlike the ‘muscular’ liberalism typified by the Bush administration’s ‘axis of evil’.