The Increasing Irrelevence of the US
Bush travels to Europe and no one really cares much. Koreans mass in the streets of Seoul to protest that US beef may soon be imported - they’re afraid of Mad Cow Disease and even more afraid that the US will dump its tainted beef on them at low prices. The Korean government almost to a man, offers to reign. Iran reacts with scorn to threatened US sanctions, and even seems to welcome the opportunity to say nasty things about ‘the Great Satan’ (That’s us. In case you’d forgotten.)
In fact the US seems to be a waning power for many people around the globe. The Iranians can always turn to China for all the help they need, and Europe has for some time found it unnecessary to rely on the US. There is very little that we manufacture that they need, and as the US becomes less popular and fewer people want to emulate us, there is less that they want. The US has not joined the treaties on restricting greenhouse emissions; neither has it remained a signatory of the Geneva Convention regarding such things as torture; and it hasn’t supported the Millenium Goals to reduce poverty in the world’s poorest countries. It currently gives a large amount of money to NATO and the UN but not, alas, it’s actual fair share of GNP.
Our last general election was hardly up to the standards we routinely insist upon for other countries. And those other countries have a way to remembering that.
These things do not make us more popular globally, and the USA that post World War Two was perceived as the best place on earth to live is now regarded with a less benign gaze.
We remain enormously rich and therefore we still wield some serious clout, but increasingly I sense that the US is regarded as a wealthy, capricious, aging aunt would be regarded by Bertie Wooster, as an eccentric force one flatters at times but probably does not pay a lot of real attention to.
It does not have to be this way. We can change things. If the will is present we can make a difference, soon.
