Affirming belief that America is an exceptional nation has become a test of patriotism in American politics.

Since Franklin Roosevelt's leadership in setting up the United Nations and the Nuremberg trials, the U.S. has promoted universal legal norms and the institutions to enforce them while seeking, by hook or by crook, to exempt American citizens, especially soldiers, from their actual application.

America is exceptional in combining standard great-power realism with extravagant idealism about the country's redemptive role in creating international order.

Michael Ignatieff Quotes