The U.S. population may be largely isolationist but it is even to a greater degree deeply addicted to the consumer bonanza imperialism offers them. I may be mistaken but I thought the U.S. got rich in WW I by lending money to France, effectively transforming the US from a debtor country to a creditor one. I read that somewhere but I haven't checked the statement's veracity. Get involved abroad and profit, see Iraq.

Above, adsf, I think, glibly tells us the US public would gladly withdraw from various parts of the world, which, in fact, is a political and economic impossibility for any US government. The US would lose most influence and become a completely different place. Better? I doubt it. More reactionary and estranged from the rest of the world. The US public has long been addicted to power. Just imagine if they couldn't qualify themselves as 'the richest and most powerful country in the world'.

What a droll idea: blaming Europe for the US horror show in Iraq. The notion is nuts.

This Hanson guy has the Greek tic: ancient Greece is the cradle of western civilization and therefore encapsulates everything that followed. You can see this as a humanistic pendant of the legend of Genesis. Was he born rich? Anyway, philologists of this bent have always struck me as irritatingly snobbish.