How did foreign policy of the last eight years affect American views on US engagement in the world?
That’s a good question. I think the last eight years have been tempering for a lot of Americans. Especially the problems with the Iraq war have been very sobering to Americans, and that’s why a lot of Americans, including the majority of evangelicals, say that America sometimes cannot be a force for good in the world, can mess up. So I think that while Americans still support a major American role in the world, they want us to be smart about it. They are very concerned about not making the same mistakes we made in Iraq, not going in without knowing what we were going to do. Q: How did 9/11 complicate American foreign policy? A: It dominates American foreign policy. I think it thrust the nation into a relationship with the Islamic world that is inevitable, vital, and complicated. The relationship between the United States and the Islamic world is the central relationship on the global stage today, and it will determine the fate of world peace and conflict for generations, I think. What
