End of the American Century

THE RECENT APPOINTMENT of John Bolton as UN Ambassador only confirmed what already was apparent; the president of the U.S. no longer is the leader of the free world. That role now is being passed on to others. The U.S. has created the most powerful military machine ever known, yet it has used that machine to relegate itself to secondary status among great nations.

Instead of having a strategy to shape the world for the betterment of mankind, the Bush Administration has wandered aimlessly among objectives in foreign policy and employed bullying tactics instead of the bully pulpit. It has substituted an intricate web of falsehoods for thoughtfulness and good planning. Global leadership in the hands of the Bush Administration has spiraled downward, leaving an opening for others to set examples and provide guidance.

The most critical of these failures in leadership is not the Bolton appointment. That merely was a demonstration of the point. The worst remains the invasion of Iraq under--at best--elusionary rationales and possibly fabricated intelligence. While weapons of mass destruction in the hands of dictator Saddam Hussein were touted as the explicit reason for the invasion, the total lack of evidence on this count only resulted in an ex-post-facto shift in the Administration's argument to the establishment of an Iraqi democracy. In doing so, it has ignored completely the many other dictatorships the U.S. has supported (including Saddam Hussein's) and continues to support around the world. With their rampant framing mentality, the Republicans seem to think that simply repeating their fictions somehow will make them true. The rest of the world sees it differently.

While a slim majority of Americans still supports the U.S. war effort, a June, 2005, Rasmussen Reports poll indicates that 49% of Americans say that Pres. Bush is more responsible for starting the war with Iraq than Saddam Hussein. The survey found that 44% take the opposite view. Outside the U.S., far greater majorities put the burden on Bush. A longstanding free-world principle is that democracies do not start wars. The leader of the free world cannot be seen as an invader.

The second is the tactical misdirection taken in the so-called "war on terrorism." We did make a direct strike on the Islamic radical terrorist group that was behind the 9/11 attack when we bombed training camps and sent troops in to dislodge the government of Afghanistan in late 2001. Since then, the Administration has diluted that effort by diverting resources to fight an unconnected war in Iraq, thus undermanning U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, and failing to locus on radical Islamic terrorists (as distinct from any terrorist) and develop and pursue a coherent and comprehensive strategy to deal with the world's divisions that lay behind the terrorist problem.

Other international issues where the U.S. historically has taken leadership roles also have become victims of American ideological sidetracking and confusion. The U.S. backed out of the Kyoto Protocol by claiming that global warming is not a real threat. Other nations have taken the lead on trying to resolve this issue and Bush, five years later, has had to admit that there really is a problem and that there is human involvement in it. On AIDS and HIV, the Administration has made grand gestures, yet allowed ideological and religious pursuits regarding condoms and abortion to undermine and delay any major U.S. contributions.

Two recent public relations debacles further have diminished U.S. leadership in the eyes of the world. One is leaks from chief White House aide Karl Rove of classified information about a CIA operative and a nonsensical and contradictory defense of Rove. The other is the appointment of Bolton.

Whatever the legal details of the Rove case, information that was classified secret either was provided or confirmed by Rove concerning the identity of a CIA agent who was the spouse of a political opponent of Bush. The President initially condemned this leak and asserted that the individual would be punished. Upon learning of Rove's involvement, Bush turned around on the issue, letting the case founder in technical legal details. These technicalities have little impact on image, especially outside the U.S. It still looks like political corruption of the intelligence and foreign policy decisionmaking processes.

Bolton's recess appointment, like his nomination, is a cancer on the Administration's global leadership position. There was opposition to the nomination in almost every quarter within the U.S. and without, including from the President's own party. From Sen. Chuck Hagel (R.-Neb.): "We need a uniter. We need a builder. We need someone who will reach out to our friends and our allies at the United Nations." Sen. George Voinovich (R.-Ohio) prevented the nomination from being reported positively out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

A group of 125 former diplomats wrote an extraordinary letter to Pres. Bush opposing Bolton's nomination, arguing that he lacked the appropriate history and credentials to be able to lead in the UN or to even work with allies. Bush has put him in the position anyway, an indication that ideology beats common sense, at least for this Administration.