Faculty and students described this year’s International Roundtable, held last weekend in Weyerhaeuser Chapel as one of the best in recent memory, owing to the caliber of debate and the range of the political spectrum represented.

The roundtable, entitled “America and Global Power: Empire or … ?,” played host to three well-known intellectuals: Harvard historian Niall Ferguson, leftist commentator Tariq Ali, and think tank conservative Michael A. Ledeen.

“This was the most successful roundtable we’ve ever had,” History professor Paul Solon said. “[The speakers] represented a pretty good balance from extreme left to extreme right.”

Scottish-born Ferguson, who was the keynote speaker, joked that he was surprised to hear the sound of bagpipes, the very music that had accompanied his ancestors during the heyday of “Scottish Empire.”

The Harvard professor offered a spirited presentation of his recent book “Colossus,” which he said was aimed at American and British statesmen who “blindly” ignored the lessons of previous empires. The United States is an empire and always has been, he said, arguing that American empire, although imperfect, is preferable to existing alternatives.

Ferguson drew parallels between the contemporary American rhetorical justifications for the invasion of Iraq and those offered during the British invasion of Iraq in the early 20th century.

Professor of Anthropology Jack Weatherford introduced Ali, and confessed at the outset that he had “googled” Ali that very morning after confusing him with the former Iraqi foreign affairs minister.

Ali, the editor of New Left Review, offered a vastly different portrait of American power around the world. He argued that empires are destructive forces that harm colonized peoples, citing examples of poverty in India and violence in the Belgian Congo. Ali said that the United States’ empire is no exception, considering the current occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Many students gave Ali a standing ovation at the end of his presentation.

Anna Kl‰ppe ’05 and Biology professor Mark Davis responded to Ali’s remarks. Davis said Ali’s argument was fueled by political ideology and accused Ali of tailoring his presentation to elicit a more impressive response from the crowd.

The most contentious exchange occurred on Friday afternoon, during Ledeen’s address entitled “The American Mission.” Ledeen, who holds the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. Ledeen spoke of the necessity of “democratic revolutions” around the world nurtured by American intervention.

He argued that Americans are torn between “Jeffersonian” tendencies of engagement with the world and “Washingtonian” tendencies favoring isolationism, a split which he said results in an unpredictable and fluid foreign policy.

Ledeen received open laughter from some audience members when he said that the United States only supports dictatorships in times of emergency. He elicited similar reactions when he characterized France as “our enemy” and called the United Nations, whose flag was prominently displayed in the Chapel, “the world’s biggest thief.”

Jesse Uggla ’05 responded to Ledeen by offering an alternative vision for America’s role in the world and warning of the dangers of neglecting “soft power.” “Is military power really sixteen times more important than diplomacy?” he asked the audience, in response to Ledeen’s assertion that the military is that much more important than diplomacy.

Faculty respondent and History professor Emily Rosenberg took issue with Ledeen’s “victimization” of America and some of Ledeen’s historical analogies.

Ledeen said he was being “vilified” by Rosenberg. He compared her to a “junior senator from Wisconsin,” a reference to the controversial former Senator Joseph McCarthy, who is notorious for his aggressive investigations of suspected Communists in the 1950s.

A tense question and answer period followed Ledeen’s presentation, in which several students began shouting questions to Ledeen rather than waiting in line. Uggla later responded by saying, “In the interest of maintaining the prestige of the event and the quality of discourse, some people need to reevaluate how they involve themselves.”

A Saturday morning panel with all three participants drew a standing room-only crowd. Professor of Religious Studies Paula Cooey moderated the panel and challenged the three panelists to give policy advice for America’s role in the world.

Although the discussion repeatedly returned to an argument between Ferguson and Ali over the legitimacy of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, all three made their differences on American foreign policy abundantly clear by suggesting vastly different uses of American power. “End the Washington consensus [on neoliberal economic reforms in developing countries],” Ali said. Ledeen counseled Cooey never to listen to the C.I.A. “Let them produce their little reports, but ignore them in the end.” Ali taunted Ferguson, telling Ferguson to continue the discussion “with [his] students at Harvard.”

Many students and faculty members said the roundtable offered a diversity of views not normally found on campus.

“A real range of views were presented that were not compatible,” Political Science Professor Andrew Latham said. “We owe it to [the students] to bring a diversity of views. We’re not running a seminary in which we’re imparting a faith.”

“Last time I checked, people like Tariq Ali weren’t running the world, and people like Michael Ledeen and Niall Ferguson were,” he added.

Dean of International Studies and Programing Ahmed Samatar defended some of the students’ antagonistic questions.

“We are who we are,” he said. “[Macalester] is an institution where the student culture is liberal left … but not to the exclusion of other ideas. If one does exclude other ideas, [student intellectual culture] becomes a theology and not an intellectual enterprise.”