Krauthammer v. Scowcroft

Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer has an excellent piece today on the "realism" of Brent Scowcroft.

Even today Scowcroft says, ``I didn't think that calling the Soviet Union the `evil empire' got anybody anywhere.'' Tell that to Natan Sharansky and other Soviet dissidents for whom that declaration of moral -- beyond geopolitical -- purpose was electrifying, and helped galvanize the dissident movements that ultimately brought down the Soviet empire.

It was not brought down by diplomacy and arms control, the preferred realist means for dealing with the Soviet Union. It was brought down by indigenous revolutionaries, encouraged and supported by Ronald Reagan, a president unabashedly dedicated not to detente with evil, but its destruction -- i.e., regime change.