US administrations typically suffer temporary loss of international influence as their time in office draws to a close. But rarely has Washington’s global prestige and leverage fallen so low as in the dog days of US President George W. Bush’s eight-year reign. This debilitation is a source of concern for the US’ friends — and a dangerous opportunity for its enemies, who hope such weakness can be both exploited and made permanent.
The US-triggered economic crisis has reinforced hostile perceptions of US vulnerability.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gleefully invited Iranians to listen to the sound of global power crashing to the ground.
ILLUSTRATION: MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
Ali Akbar Nateq-Nuri, senior adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told a prayer meeting that Bush’s reported refusal to back an Israeli military strike on Iran was another sign of failing US will.
Nateq-Nuri claimed Washington’s “retreat” showed US and European support for Israel was diminishing. Seen from Washington, this interpretation looks patently absurd. Yet the fact that a top figure in Tehran apparently believes a future attempt to destroy Israel would meet with reduced resistance from the Western powers is deeply worrying.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is also aggressively exploiting Bush’s lame duck troubles in his bid to reassert Moscow’s great power status. Analysts suggest Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August was based in part on calculations, since vindicated, that Bush would be unwilling or unable to react forcefully.
Now Putin appears to be threatening Ukraine, accusing Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko of sending weapons and military personnel to help Georgia.
“When people and military systems are used to kill Russian soldiers, it’s a crime,” Putin said last week.
US Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain is warning that Putin is encouraging the ethnic Russian population of Ukraine’s Crimea region to break with Kiev. But at present the US is mostly a spectator.
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev is meanwhile busily rubbing American noses in the financial dirt — and pointing to long-term strategic consequences of the crisis.
“The times when one economy and one country dominated are gone for good,” Medvedev said.
To American ears his words uncomfortably echoed German Finance Minister Peer Steinbruck, an ostensible ally, who said “the US will lose its superpower status in the world financial system.”
Americans have been reminded that schadenfreude is, after all, a German word.
Some countries are seeking shorter-term advantage from US troubles. North Korea may be counting on a new, possibly Democratic, administration to gain a more favorable nuclear disarmament deal. Similar considerations have helped freeze the Middle East peace process.
But uncertainty over the US’ — and its allies’ — will to win in Afghanistan, and over how quickly the US will get out of Iraq, is affecting longer-term political calculations in Islamabad, Kabul and Baghdad. It may also be encouraging the Taliban and al-Qaeda in their escalating campaigns of violence. They read the newspapers and the Internet, too. And with the US’ purse strings tightly stretched, they must wonder whether a new administration can afford the tens of billions of dollars needed to pursue two unpopular wars.
In the US’ backyard, ideological enemies such as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez are hoping for a permanent shift in power in a region historically dominated by the US.
“The world will never be the same after this crisis,” Chavez said during a visit to Brazil. “We are decoupling from the wagon of death.”
His host, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, complained bitterly that Washington spent years telling Latin America how to get its economic house in order — and then ignored its own advice.
Yet despite all the weaknesses, it would be foolish to start writing obituaries for US power.
Former Bosnian war peacemaker Richard Holbrooke, writing in the journal Foreign Affairs, suggested that the US’ ambition remains undiminished. The next president, said Holbrooke, who is tipped as a possible secretary of state in an Obama administration, would also inherit “a nation that is still the most powerful in the world — a nation rich with the continued promise of its dynamic and increasingly diverse population, a nation that could, and must, again inspire, mobilize and lead the world.”
A failure by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to respond to Israel’s brilliant 12-day (June 12-23) bombing and special operations war against Iran, topped by US President Donald Trump’s ordering the June 21 bombing of Iranian deep underground nuclear weapons fuel processing sites, has been noted by some as demonstrating a profound lack of resolve, even “impotence,” by China. However, this would be a dangerous underestimation of CCP ambitions and its broader and more profound military response to the Trump Administration — a challenge that includes an acceleration of its strategies to assist nuclear proxy states, and developing a wide array
Eating at a breakfast shop the other day, I turned to an old man sitting at the table next to mine. “Hey, did you hear that the Legislative Yuan passed a bill to give everyone NT$10,000 [US$340]?” I said, pointing to a newspaper headline. The old man cursed, then said: “Yeah, the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] canceled the NT$100 billion subsidy for Taiwan Power Co and announced they would give everyone NT$10,000 instead. “Nice. Now they are saying that if electricity prices go up, we can just use that cash to pay for it,” he said. “I have no time for drivel like
Twenty-four Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers are facing recall votes on Saturday, prompting nearly all KMT officials and lawmakers to rally their supporters over the past weekend, urging them to vote “no” in a bid to retain their seats and preserve the KMT’s majority in the Legislative Yuan. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which had largely kept its distance from the civic recall campaigns, earlier this month instructed its officials and staff to support the recall groups in a final push to protect the nation. The justification for the recalls has increasingly been framed as a “resistance” movement against China and
Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) reportedly told the EU’s top diplomat that China does not want Russia to lose in Ukraine, because the US could shift its focus to countering Beijing. Wang made the comment while meeting with EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas on July 2 at the 13th China-EU High-Level Strategic Dialogue in Brussels, the South China Morning Post and CNN reported. Although contrary to China’s claim of neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, such a frank remark suggests Beijing might prefer a protracted war to keep the US from focusing on
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