Most of what you say is completely reasonable. Good job!

Preemption policy toward "rogue states" has been eroded.

So for instance, if the administration started to build a case for invading Iran or Syria, that Americans would not be less inclined to permit it? I think you are wrong, and I hope I don't have the opportunity to prove it. (maybe I should hope for the opportunity to prove it -- and before November '04 would be most beneficial!)

Tom's point is made here. NK has backtracked on their insistence on bilateral talk with USA.

I agree that the public would be disinclined to support future pre-emptive invasions until this one has proved to be a total success. I think that is the way it should be. It is one thing to believe we did the right thing but it has to work.

And The United Nations' importance on security issues has been elevated.

I think the author clarified what he meant by this in the parts you didn't quote, for example: The warm reception the president recently gave U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan was a step toward reconciliation. It's not surprising; the United States needs the United Nations more as preemption recedes and deficits rise.

We can afford to be magnanimous. The UN or something like it is needed. We made our point with the UN and they are likely to take us more serious in the future.

It's pretty clear that a lot of countries in the world will not provide troops to help our efforts until they receive a UN blessing. Whether this is more true now, is hard to prove one way or the other. Again: we will have to wait for our next adventure to find out for sure.

A lot of countries don't have the resources and/or aren't willing to send troops into Iraq to take fire from dead-enders but some have and more will as the resistance (hopefully) dies down.

And And in creating enormous new obligations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the president has probably eliminated further serious use of an indispensable tool -- nation-building -- although, to be sure, it was a tool he never much cared for.

Nation-building may be a tool and it may even be indispensable but it can only be used on one project at a time. How much nation building do we need to be involved with?

In one respect, I think this is jumping the gun. We will have to wait a number of years to determine whether history will judge our efforts a wild success (like the Marshall plan) or an utter failure (like Viet Nam).

I suppose it could fall somewhere in the middle but I agree with you that our efforts must stand the test of time.

For the short term though, I can't see Americans signing on to any more nation building efforts. Can you really? Do you really think we can afford to build more countries? Doesn't sound very libertarian

I agree.