The editor at the writing conference where I pitched a novel several years ago shook his head. “Stories with foreign themes don’t sell well.”

“Even with all the turmoil in the Middle East?” I asked.

“Even with that.” He didn’t offer to look at my one-sheet.

In the July/August 2012 issue of Foreign Affairs, Princeton Professor Robert O. Keohane reviewed a couple of books about the future of America’s place in the world. He discussed the disinterest of many Americans in international issues unless we are in a crisis situation. He mentioned the “intense domestic partisan conflict” that prevents problems from being resolved and that “constitutes a major threat” to our continued leadership abroad.

We seem unable to understand the opportunity we have for influence in the world. With the opportunity comes responsibility. How well we lead in the world depends on how well we govern at home. When our government appears dysfunctional, other countries tend to dismiss our advice to them about democracy and free elections. When we can’t work out compromises, as any democracy must, our efforts to defuse clashing Middle Eastern ethnic groups are ignored. We can’t keep our own house in order, so what right have we to advise other governments?

We will profit by an interest in the global happenings that influence us: the Euro currency crisis, the spread of Chinese commercial interests into Africa and South America, the Iranian nuclear crisis, and so on.

We are right to be concerned about domestic issues, but as Jesus said about the righteousness of the Pharisees: they were right to be concerned about such things as tithing, but they also should add justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

We need to add concern about issues beyond our shores to our domestic interests. If we don’t, the world will forget about us and our squabbles. They will look for leadership to a more internationally savvy nation, and who knows if that nation will be democratic and free?