“There was no corner of the known world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger or under actual attack. If the interests were not Roman, they were those of Rome’s allies; and if Rome had no allies, the allies would be invented…. The fight was always invested with an aura of legality. Rome was always being attacked by evil-minded neighbors. The whole world was pervaded by a host of enemies, it was manifestly Rome’s duty to guard against their indubitably aggressive designs.”

This quote, from economist Joseph Schumpeter, is making its way around the Internet thanks to a voluble anti-war group conducting a worthy campaign.

Substitute “United States” for Rome, and you get a fair description of American foreign policy: Aggressive enemies are everywhere, and they must be destroyed.

Iraq, part of something called the “axis of evil,” tops the list of those enemies.

Iraq cannot attack the United States in the traditional military sense with troops, ships and planes, the emperor and his myrmidons admit, but it might attack American “allies” in the Middle East. First among them is our “only democratic ally” there, Israel, which has made life for Palestinians on the West Bank in 2002 extremely miserable. Some democracy.

And, we are told, Iraq threatens Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other nations, “allies” who are not allies at all but mere vendors. They sell us oil. Still, we must defend them because we must defend ourselves.

The “aura of legality” is found not in a congressional declaration of war, as mandated by our Constitution. After a full-throated debate, a declaration would fail.

So we turn to the United Nations, which recently added another fulsome, anti-Iraq resolution to more than a dozen others. Disarm or else, the U.N., says, with the United States providing the blood and treasure to back up the ultimatum.

And what are Iraq’s “indubitably aggressive designs.” It builds “weapons of mass destruction” it might use against neighbors (our “allies”) or even the United States, although not one administration official has bothered explaining why Iraq would launch such a suicidal attack. All we know is this: Iraq might have poison gas, bacterial or even atomic bombs, and it might use them.

The imperial regime never adds, “and they might not.”

Comparing the United States to the Roman Empire might seem too much hyperbole by half. Our conquering troops do not return with slaves, and we succor the vanquished with billions of dollars in foreign aid, food and medicine. We don’t feed Christians to the lions or crucify enemies of the state (well, sometimes we do, figuratively).

But Rome could not move 500,000 soldiers across the planet in a matter of weeks, or patrol a “no-fly” zone in the skies of its enemies, or whistle up an invisible bomber to drop a payload of napalm on a target 6,000 miles away, and return home in less than 36 hours.

One might conclude from these facts that Bosnians and Iraqis should fear the United States more than the Celts or Gauls feared Rome.

Most likely, they do. Which brings us back to Schumpeter’s observation.

It would be so much bunkum were American legions not stationed across the planet to execute the Roman foreign policy he accurately describes.

But they are, they can, and they do.

R. Cort Kirkwood is managing editor of the Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg, Va. His e-mail address is: kirkwood@shentel.net.