Getting empire right

President Bush: dogged by economic challenges Not long ago, one of the more pervasive explanations for the American war in Iraq was that the Washington had somehow embarked on an imperialist binge. Many a learned scholar clamored that what was on display was, in fact, “neo-imperialism” fashioned by a small clique of right-wing hotheads who had infiltrated the highest echelons of the Bush administration. How quaint the explanation now seems, as the US has spent the past several months proving that, if a new imperialism was indeed once a mantra (and nothing proves this), then very poor imperialists the Americans have proven to be. As the presidential election approaches, in Iraq the US is suffering from, to quote British historian Niall Ferguson, “attention deficit disorder.” Ferguson has been making this case for over a year now, in the context primarily, but not exclusively, of the Iraqi conflict. However, his argument