The Decline Begins

[never cry wolf]

An excellent cover story from this week's National Journal

http://nationaljournal.com/njcover.htm

There was a summary of it in the Tribune (below) better than I could compile, it is an important piece.

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_theswamp/2007/05/has_bush_led_to.html#more

Has Bush led to decline of 'American era?'

Posted by Frank James at 11:18 am CDT

The National Journal has a thought-provoking piece today on the question of whether the U.S. has fallen from the global pedestal with the "American era" in world history coming to an end due in part to U.S. missteps.

It turned to well-known experts for an answer. The consensus? Maybe.

According to James Kitfield, the article's writer:

"… A surprising number of respected strategic thinkers and foreign-policy elites, from both ends of the political spectrum, already detect a fundamental and potentially lasting realignment of power on the strategic chessboard. Even if an American era that decisively shaped world affairs for the past half-century has not been eclipsed, they warn that it certainly shows signs of waning."

"For a number of reasons, I believe we are entering an era where U.S. power and relative influence, in the Middle East especially, is reduced and the influence of others who have anything but a pro-American outlook is increasing, and that trend is likely to continue for decades to come," said Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. "I predict this realignment will be enduring."

Haas was number three in the State Department during President Bush's first term so he speaks with a former insider's knowledge.

Other experts and former White House insiders, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Skowcroft, former national security advisors for president Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, respectively, agree with Haas that the U.S. has significantly damaged its ability to wield the power that came with being the world's only superpower.

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Even Edward Luttwak, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who doesn't share the totally pessimistic view that U.S. power hasn't been damaged forever still has a harsh critique of what Bush Administration's actions.

... (H)e decries the diversion into Iraq at the cusp of an important victory against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. "We overshot the culminating point of success, because at that point the enemy was frightened, our friends were reassured, and neutrals were inclined to cooperate. At that point we should have regrouped and acted more humble," he said. Instead, Luttwak noted, the United States is paying a great price for becoming embroiled in the internecine conflicts of an unforgiving Middle East. "America is rediscovering an irony of history, played out over and over, where the single strongest power overreaches and provokes resistance, and the louder and more arrogantly it acts, the more resistance it provokes, until its power is neutralized."

As the article implies throughout, the Bush Administration's ironic legacy may be that in its zeal to flex American power in the world, it may have permanently damaged it, an unintended consequence that future generations of Americans may always rue.

[dave_p]

1. America may thank Bush yet

"America is rediscovering an irony of history, played out over and over, where the single strongest power overreaches and provokes resistance, and the louder and more arrogantly it acts, the more resistance it provokes, until its power is neutralized."

That's the way it always goes. And it doesn't just happen to countries, it's happening domestically to the GOP and the conservative movement too: it's why there's no such thing as a "permanent majority".

Bush's idiocies only underline the poverty of unilateralism. The US simply can't dictate terms to the rest of the world forever, because other countries are becoming an economic force. Peace and prosperity in the future will depend on cooperation for shared goals.

The Iraq debacle may paradoxically ease the transition if Americans learn the lesson that a future worth having will be one of multilateralism. And that doesn't mean just relying on old and weakening alliances, it means working through global partnerships.

[GeorgeGist]

2. Countless lives late and a century short ...

PNAC was over before it even began. Those wily reactionaries.

[kurth]

3. It probably started with Reagan

It is becoming fashionable to divert blame from the saint.

[KharmaTrain]

4. The World Is In The 21st Century...Booooshie World Is In The 19th

The neo-con dream was some sort of revisit to Pax Britannia...where the sun never set on their empire of profit and control. It's a world where white men dominate, women are subservient and brown-skinned people are savages and inferior. It's where the bible...or whomever's interpretation or meglomania is used as both a justification and an excuse for the very behavior its words preach against. It's a world that crumbled under its own largess 100 years ago, but the neo-cons never bothered to take a history course.

The damage this regime has done on an international scale is yet to be determined as we've had a totally non-functioning State Department (If you think Gonzo's incompetent...Rice puts that tool to shame) and fiscal and economic policies that are bankrupting this country. The global economy has moved on without us and the leads we had in technology and development in the 90's is now a smoldering outsourced ruin. With this isolation and incompetence, the US has lost the most valuable asset it had as a benevolent world power...the concept of an open society based on civil rights and respect. The boooosh regime will be viewed as the nadir of the American "century"...but will the US ever recover its moral standing? That will be one of the most important and difficult jobs for the next President.

[never cry wolf]

5. Self-Kick.... I thought it was an important piece

Maybe I lacked the right presentation? :shrug: