Bush's Inauguration Speech

Although I have deep doubts based on the past four years that his actions will match his words, President Bush expressed some noble sentiments in his inauguration speech today. Sentiments that, if you take them at face value, are the heart of liberal internationalism. A few snippets:

"All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you."

"We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."

What Bush is saying is amazing, actually. He is stating that the ideal of spreading liberty and fighting tyranny by itself is a worthy enough reason to use the diplomatic and military power of the United States.

Rarely in American history has any foreign policy action been sincerely argued solely for idealistic reasons. For Iraq, the administration focused on propping up Iraq's ties to Al-qaeda and WMD capabilities, i.e. tangible practical reasons.
If the Bush administration argued that we should invade Iraq solely because he was a brutal dictator and forgoed the WMD and Al-qaeda angles, do you think he would have gotten as much support for the war?

Bush's argument is as liberal as it gets. Human rights as reason enough for international action is the argument of organizations like Amnesty International. Yet, in essence, this is what Bush said.

Yes, it is very likely this is just an attempt to increase support for the war in Iraq by downplaying the previous rationales and playing up the one good rationale we have left. And the many alliances the Bush administration have made with repressive regimes in the past four years would leave one to be extremely skeptical that the President means what he says. But it is a worthy (and surprising) sentiment nonetheless.