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.”
The saga of Sarah Dzafce, the disgraced former Miss Finland, is far more significant than a mere beauty pageant controversy. It serves as a potent and painful contemporary lesson in global cultural ethics and the absolute necessity of racial respect. Her public career was instantly pulverized not by a lapse in judgement, but by a deliberate act of racial hostility, the flames of which swiftly encircled the globe. The offensive action was simple, yet profoundly provocative: a 15-second video in which Dzafce performed the infamous “slanted eyes” gesture — a crude, historically loaded caricature of East Asian features used in Western
Is a new foreign partner for Taiwan emerging in the Middle East? Last week, Taiwanese media reported that Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) secretly visited Israel, a country with whom Taiwan has long shared unofficial relations but which has approached those relations cautiously. In the wake of China’s implicit but clear support for Hamas and Iran in the wake of the October 2023 assault on Israel, Jerusalem’s calculus may be changing. Both small countries facing literal existential threats, Israel and Taiwan have much to gain from closer ties. In his recent op-ed for the Washington Post, President William
A stabbing attack inside and near two busy Taipei MRT stations on Friday evening shocked the nation and made headlines in many foreign and local news media, as such indiscriminate attacks are rare in Taiwan. Four people died, including the 27-year-old suspect, and 11 people sustained injuries. At Taipei Main Station, the suspect threw smoke grenades near two exits and fatally stabbed one person who tried to stop him. He later made his way to Eslite Spectrum Nanxi department store near Zhongshan MRT Station, where he threw more smoke grenades and fatally stabbed a person on a scooter by the roadside.
Taiwan-India relations appear to have been put on the back burner this year, including on Taiwan’s side. Geopolitical pressures have compelled both countries to recalibrate their priorities, even as their core security challenges remain unchanged. However, what is striking is the visible decline in the attention India once received from Taiwan. The absence of the annual Diwali celebrations for the Indian community and the lack of a commemoration marking the 30-year anniversary of the representative offices, the India Taipei Association and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center, speak volumes and raise serious questions about whether Taiwan still has a coherent India
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