Do Americans want to be loved?

That's an old saw and the basis of David Ignatius' latest column. This is one of those memes that don't really make a lot of sense when you examine them.

We don't like to be criticized. Nobody does, but the only Americans I know who want the rest of the world to love us are liberals. Most of us don't care that much what the rest of the world thinks of us. We get annoyed when, like the French, they get huffy and don't seem to remember that a lot of Americans died to give them back their freedom from German agression not that long ago. And when people come from abroad, accept our hospitality, study in our universities and then turn on us and kill thousands of us, we get angry and want to hit back. Right now we're spending American lives and treasure to try to build a democracy in Iraq. It's not because we want to turn it into a playground for vacationing Americans. And it's not because we want to own another Puerto Rico.

We think that the best way to keep the rest of the world from dumping their problems and violence on us is to take out the people who are causing trouble. When the terrorists are defeated, the Iraqis are dealing with them without our help, or it becomes clear that they just can't do it, we'll bring our troops home, or take another tack against terrorism. We don't care if Iraqis love us afterwards, we just want to be left alone, to trade with others and to let them live their lives.