Srinagar, April 17 -- US President Donald Trump is not known for respecting science and history. Frompromotingunproven treatments for COVID-19 toinsistingthat any discussion of shameful elements of America's past is "divisive," he prefers to manipulate them for political ends. One wonders whether he realizes, when he waxes nostalgic about America's historical "greatness," that he is usually referring to times when the United States was a geopolitical weakling.

Trump'sinvocationof the Monroe Doctrine is acase in point. When President James Monroe asserted in 1823 that the Western Hemisphere was solely the domain of the US, America was far from establishing itself as a global power. And while it has been used to rationalize US intervention...