Seeds of impatience seem about to push through the ground -- here, elsewhere in Asia, and beyond. We know about the techno-glories of the American military machine, the sentiment runs; now tell us just what the machine has been deployed to accomplish.
There's another way to put this. A few weeks ago, an American professor combed all available documents to produce the most authoritative analysis to date of civilian casualties in the Afghan bombing campaign -- a matter Washington declines to discuss. By Dec. 7, the study concluded, the figure reached a conservative estimate of 3,800 -- and probably surpasses the number killed on Sept. 11. "At some point," a friend here said the other day, "this should be justified." Newly complex relationships, from Iran eastward to China, will require sophisticated attention in coming months. The new government in Kabul will have to prove itself something more than an American creation in the service of oil and gas companies, and behind Musharraf's friendship, one hears, there is a tide of anti-Americanism among Pakistanis that could easily turn into tomorrow's crisis.
In Manila, legislators fret and crowds gather outside the US Embassy as American troops prepare to begin the next phase of the war on terrorism. In Saudi Arabia, The Washington Post reported a few days ago, there is disquiet from the street upward to the ruling elite regarding the continued presence of US troops on Saudi soil.
It would appear, in sum, that the American narrative of the world since Sept. 11 is beginning to look incomplete -- and that no one is writing Chapter Two.
The same point applies to the economic model Washington has so vigorously advanced over the past decade. Argentine President Eduardo Duhalde had the right word for it last week: It's "exhausted." Duhalde now proposes to replace it with measures to revive domestic production, create jobs, and put the interests of Argentina and Argentines first. The only thing shocking about this list of priorities is how many people in Washington and elsewhere outside Argentina find it shocking.
In South Korea, the days grow short for the government of Kim Dae-jung. Last week, Seoul asked Washington -- once again -- for help in advancing the cause of detente with the North. It's blood from stones. The South Koreans and their honorable president would be wise to start thinking of alternative ways forward -- ideas of their own making.
This leads us to a positive point that lies at the heart of this picture. If a vacuum of new ideas in Washington is becoming ever more apparent, perhaps it creates a moment in which Asians can begin formulating some of their own.
For the Americans, we have to start thinking in terms of lost opportunities.
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