Lincoln's use of national will during the Civil War was also focused at preserving a vision, dream if you will, of the Federal Union. When he decided that might not provide enough grassroots motivation, he switched part of his focus to ending slavery. There is also a significant body of evidence that Lincoln hijacked many processes (both legal and legislative) to achieve his goals. Northern national will was a very unstable thing (witness the draft riots in New York City and other places, and some of the steps Lincoln took to bring Maryland under Union control). But that's more of a historical quibble on my part...

Marc, I agree with you regarding the position of the US in most of this stuff. If you look at the history of US military involvements, there has always been a significant body of dissent IF the preservation of the nation was not at stake. With exceptions based more on corporate and Administration preferences (Woodrow Wilson used the military far more often for "Imperial" missions than Teddy Roosevelt, for example), the "US street" has been pretty content to ignore international events. And as I've said before, leaders these days are VERY reluctant to stir up the level of involvement on the part of the public that is required to mobilize national will. Even in the immediate aftermath of September 11, when the will was already mobilized, you could see this reluctance on the part of most elected officials.

Do the American people lack national will? I really don't think so. What we lack is the required cultural arrogance to project that will onto others. Before I get lynched by others for that statement, let me explain what I mean by cultural arrogance. Americans may believe that we have the best system on the planet, but there is also a strong undercurrent within the body public that others should just recognize this and adapt our system to their own needs. What we lack is the Imperial conviction that our system is naturally better than others and should be imposed on them.

At the end of the day, I think it comes down to political reluctance to mobilize any sort of national will and the ingrained American preference to "conquer through kindness, Coke, and MTV" as opposed to military force. It is this level of political cowardice and complacence that has led to the ideological side of the conflict being buried.