Diplomacy, a thriving economy, a vibrant culture—these, too, are powerful (and neglected) tools for spreading the American credo. The framework agreement struck by Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on verifying and dismantling Syrian stockpiles of chemical weapons could serve as the basis for a broader rapprochement between Moscow and Washington. Obama’s support for talks with Iran also represents engagement, not isolation. Republicans would do well to recall that past presidents such as George H. W. Bush and advisers like Henry Kissinger united diplomacy and force to exercise American leadership abroad. By contrast, if the United States were to apply the unilateralist prescription of the hawks for remedying the world’s ills consistently, then their fear of isolation would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Which is another way of saying that it isn’t those counseling restraint that are imperiling America’s engagement with the rest of the world, but, rather, those with a proclivity for recommending a militarized form of confrontation, whenever and wherever possible.

Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of The National Interest.

Image: Pullquote: Questioning intervention in Syria is not tantamount to a reversion to the most blinkered isolationist sentiments that percolated on both the right and left before Pearl Harbor.Essay Types: The Realist