It is also a mistake, he argued, to assume that the democratic development of East Asian and European nations liberated by U.S. forces in World War II -- and then occupied by U.S. forces for long periods afterward -- foreshadows what might happen now in other regions of the globe. Even in Western Europe, "we devoted enormous resources toward enforcing order, promoting cooperation, defending against invasion, removing barriers, reviving economies and a host of other unprecedented innovations," he said. "The resulting transformation is usually ascribed to the workings of democracy, but it is due far more to the impact of the long-term U.S. presence."
His perspective on this, it must be assumed, is informed by his own experience in both military and political combat.
In 1942, when he was 18, Hyde left Georgetown University to join the Navy. On Jan. 9, 1945, he commanded Landing Craft Tank 1148, an amphibious vessel that dropped U.S. forces on a beach northwest of Manila in the Japanese-occupied Philippines.
He remained on duty in the Philippines until a year after V-J Day.
Hyde was elected to Congress in 1974, when the Cold War was descending toward its darkest hours. But in the 1980s, serving on both the international relations and intelligence committees, he would become the most eloquent congressional spokesman for the policies of President Reagan that brought down the Evil Empire of the Soviet Union without precipitating another world war.
Now, in what he has announced is his final term, Hyde may become an intellectual Founding Father for an enduring post-9/11 foreign policy -- a policy rooted in reality, not ideology.
Hyde's most crucial insight is that a global U.S. crusade for democracy is not only unwise, but unsustainable. It would, he says, "require that we possess an unbounded power and undertake an open-ended commitment of time and resources, which we cannot and will not do."
Attempting it could bring unexpected and tragic results. "It may, in fact, constitute an uncontrollable experiment with an outcome akin to that faced by the Sorcerer's Apprentice," said Hyde, referring to the boy whose ill-considered magic made a mess of his master's house.
An ill-considered U.S. foreign policy, by comparison, could make a messy world even messier.
Sooner or later, U.S. policymakers will discover that Henry Hyde is right again. America will be safer the sooner they do.