This is an updated version of Guyatt’s original product, with a new post-9/11 final chapter.  In a word, the book is brilliant.  It is an in-depth analysis of U.S. foreign policy since 1945, addressing such matters as its love affair with exporting neo-conservative economics to Third World countries and the former Soviet Union, foreign policy unilateralism, the role of military-industrial forces in squashing the so-called peace dividend promised at the end of the Cold War, and American self-delusion about its own real purposes.

Focusing on the issue of self-delusion, Guyatt traces much of the unilateralism not to George W. Bush but to Bill Clinton.  Clinton started with a pledge to multilateralism, to working to eliminate land mines and institute an international criminal court.  However, when he was not able to twist these ideas into a form giving adequate recognition to American exceptionalism, he worked against them. 

Self-delusion is most clearly in evidence in the steadfast refusal by politicians and policy wonks to recognize the very clear reasons that the Arab and Islamic world have for opposing Uncle Sam and why at the extremes it throws up bin Laden and Hizbullah.  As part of the American delusion, there is a pattern of linking all Islamic opposition together.  Saddam Hussein linked to bin Laden, though the latter is an extreme sectarian and Hussein far more secular.  Hamas and al-Qaeda, though Hamas’ focus is Palestine, not taking on the United States.  And so on.

Guyatt comes down hard on the failure even to recognize the real complaints of the Arab and Muslim world against American policy.  Osama bin Laden has been clear enough that his concerns relate to the American support of the mistreatment of the Palestinians, the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, and American military activities such as the invasion of Iraq.  Guyatt correctly sees that the rise of radicalism in the Arab and Muslim world is a consequence of the total failure of Washington to respond reasonably to the demands of the moderates.  And he holds that throughout the region the fundamental thorn in the side is the way in which Israel runs roughshod over the Palestinians, with American backing.  Yet, the American political class comes up with such balderdash as “They hate freedom,” “They hate democracy,” “They are dragging us into their internal squabbles.”

In answer to the question in his title, “Another American Century?”, he concludes pessimistically that the continued blind-eyed unilateralism will simply breed new and more sophisticated terrorist attacks, more sophisticated and perhaps more deadly than 9/11.