After a first reading, the author seems confused. Actually, there are two sorts of confusion on display here. The first, which the author admits to, falls into the 'what is to be done?' category as expressed here:
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...liberal hawks might argue that this history of liberal activism perfectly expresses their purposes in the Middle East. Indeed, Hitchens has mustered Thomas Paine and the American Revolution for his war against Islamo-fascism, arguing that America is once again fighting for "the cause of all mankind." Beyond pointing out the evident hypocrisy--and wild implausibility--of a government reneging on the most basic liberal commitments at home while trumpeting its final triumph abroad, what's a progressive to say to this? If we object to the marriage of human rights and American military power, what do we propose instead?
[...]
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This is a matter of not having an alternative plan, something to compete with the "warrior liberalism" of people like Paul Berman and Field Marshall Hitchens.
That's the confusion he fesses up to.
The second sort of confusion is woven throughout the piece, a sub textual set of assumptions that prevent him from working his way out of the self-constructed maze he's caught in.
It surfaces, somewhat, in the closing paragraph:
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So if we find ourselves at a loss when challenged by liberal hawks--who are right, after all, to press us on how to promote democracy in Iraq, human rights in Sudan and so on--it's best, I think, first to admit defeat. We don't know, because we lost the great battles of the twentieth century: not just for social democracy and anti-imperialism but for social democracy and anti-imperialism with a human face. Having admitted defeat, perhaps we can begin to figure out a better answer.
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If you look carefully, you'll note the deeply embedded belief that it's the duty of more skeptical American liberals to answer the laptop warriors' interventionist dreams with interventionist dreams of their own. They must "promote democracy" just not in the way Berman et. al. have urged on -- via laser guided bombs. That's clearly disastrous, so smoother methods are needed.
The simple things elude the author. Simple things like focusing our efforts on restraining Washington from intervening at all and allowing domestic events in nations around the globe to evolve without relentless meddling from the Colossus of the North.
There's more to say but I'm out of petrol.
.d.