The Arrogance of Power

Senator J. William Fulbright wrote a book in 1966 called The Arrogance of Power about American foreign policy in Vietnam. At the time he was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In a section of the autobiography, My Life, Bill Clinton wrote about the central argument of Fulbright's book:

Fulbright's essential argument was that great nations get into trouble and can go into long-term decline when they are "arrogant" in the use of their power, trying to do things they shouldn't do in places they shouldn't be. He was suspicious of any foreign policy rooted in missionary zeal, which he felt would cause us to drift into commitments "which though generous and benevolent in content, are so far reaching as to exceed even America's great capacitities." He also thought that when we brought our power to bear in the service of an abstract concept, like anti-communism, without understanding local history, culture, and politics we could do more harm than good.

Fulbright's ideas hit the mark regarding policy in Vietnam in the 60's and appears to define America's current policy in Iraq...