The British understood that they were to be lieutenants. Foreign Office officials ruefully observed that guided by “the economic imperialism of American business interests, [Washington is] attempting to elbow us out, under the cloak of a benevolent and avuncular internationalism.” The Minister of State at the Foreign Office commented to his cabinet colleagues that Americans believe “that the United States stands for something in the world — something of which the world has need, something which the world is going to like, something, in the final analysis, which the world is going to take, whether it likes it or not.” He was articulating the real-world version of what is called “Wilsonian idealism” in the international affairs literature, the version that conforms to the historical and internal record.

The text of Noam Chomsky’s 2009 Amnesty International lecture.

(via Instapaper)