On the Square Today

In her latest On the Square column , Elizabeth Scalia explains how disdain for religion can impede diplomacy:

What I can’t help wondering, though, is why Bill Keller wants to weaken the nation’s diplomatic hand. The Times is a longtime champion of the nuanced efficacy of diplomacy—especially the soft-powered “smart” diplomacy that is the supposed specialty of Democratic administrations—and the greatest diplomatic challenge of the age involves engaging with leaders and governments for which issues of faith are very much to the fore. Determined to embrace all of the social, secular and economic policies that are not working in Europe—even as Europe is beginning to re-think them, themselves—Keller and his enlightened friends are too anxious to play the “crazy-science-hating-fanatics” card on the GOP field of nominees. They should reconsider this, especially in light of the narcissism of Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the instability of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, and the possibility of theocracies emerging from newly formed Middle Eastern governments.