Although American beliefs might not have changed, their preferences regarding policy tools have. Americans still favor democracy, and they still believe it should be spread throughout the world, so what changed? Well, after the long and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, .
Americans have learned that they are limited in their ability to achieve the desired outcome. Very little progress was made in spreading democracy to both Iraq and Afghanistan and for this reason, Americans now doubt that an intervention would succeed in spreading democracy to Syria. As the Iraqi and Afghani invasions come to a close, it appears as though Americans are becoming increasingly isolationist, as they did post WWI. Do Americans still believe in spreading democracy? Likely, yes. Do Americans believe in their ability to affect the outcome without incurring unacceptable losses? No, they don't. As Moravcsik writes "Every state would prefer to act as it pleases, yet each is compelled to realize its ends under a constraint imposed by the preferences of others. " In this case, 'the preferences of others' refer to both Syrian and Russian preferences. .
This deviation from traditional American Foreign Policy occurred due to shifts in the social demands of American's. One assumption of Liberalism is that "States represent the demands of a subset of domestic individuals and social groups. "2 The nature of the state has not altered, but the demands of individuals have; Americans do not want another costly, ineffective war and it appears as though policymakers have listened. Moravcsik writes "Representation is a key determinant (alongside the basic nature of social demands themselves) of what states want, and therefore what they do. " (Moravcsik, 238) The decision to not intervene in Syria can be explained by elected representation reacting to changing social demands in the United States. Although Americans would prefer to impose democracy in Syria, the costs (economic and social) associated with intervention are too high for most to endorse military action.
