Peanut Gallery – What role should America play in the dangerous world in which we live… lead, follow, or get out of the way? Condoleezza Rice made a compelling case for America to resume its role as a world leader.

Personally, I can’t begin to imagine what it would be like to be the parent of the last service person killed in Afghanistan before we leave that miserable place. Right now, my USMC son and his family are potentially in harm’s way in the Middle East. So I have a stake in American foreign policy.

The problem, as I see it, is that the current administration doesn’t know what it’s doing or why it’s doing it. When was the last time you heard the president explain why we are in Afghanistan and the terms for measuring success or failure?

Ron Paul’s idea of bringing everyone home and minding our own business is appealing… but delusional. World leadership is a dirty business. But if not us, whom? Iran, China, Russia, North Korea, Venezuela, Europe?

Nature abhors a vacuum. If we don’t fill the current world leadership vacuum, some one else will… and it won’t be pretty.

Check out Rice’s speech here –