The catch is whether or not America has the one crucial character trait without which the whole imperial project is doomed: stamina.

If the best and brightest insist on staying home, today's unspoken imperial project may end - unspeakably - tomorrow.

European nations entered their imperial projects with the goal of enriching the European metropole.

It is part of the long history of that imperial project for those in the West to pretend that it never happened.

It may be that other nations just have longer memories of their own failed imperial projects.

Many parts of the empire maintained their cultural identity, and were at best restive participants in the imperial project.

By "political," read: critical of the Bush administration's imperial project.

This is what gives the imperial project its moral allure.

Will we respond with imagination, compassion and courageous intelligence, refusing imperial projects and infinite war?

The imperial project then, is fraught with dangers that claims of superiority cannot fend off.