Bangladesh, May 23 -- The American turn toward Jacksonian isolationism could ultimately put it in the difficult position of having to exercise hard power to fill the very gap it created. As rogue elements take the opportunity left by the American retreat to try to impose their maximalist goals on the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean, American foreign policy finds itself at a historic crossroads with little time left in which to act.

The end of the Cold War, for reasons that had to do with American exceptionalism and also with Washington's pragmatic decision not to pursue the chimera of global domination, did not result in the systemic transition from a bipolar to a stifling unipolar international balance of power. On the contrar...