The standing of the United States has fallen into the worst disrepute abroad since the end of the Vietnam War. That is the ugly truth that Americans have to face.
Yet, in acknowledging this fact, George Bush is also distorting it in an enormous confidence trick on the American people as part of his presentation of himself as their protector in the war against terrorism and against a hostile world.
Remarkably, in their anxiety to alert the electorate to the seriousness of the damage that he has done, the Democratic Party is aiding and abetting him in this deception.
Resentment and suspicion permeates every aspect of the response to initiatives that the United States takes in foreign relations, from the slow responses that occurred during the Lebanon crisis to the weeks of painful progress before finally achieving the watered down resolution on North Korea sanctions presented by the United States at the Security Council last week.
The White House acknowledges this because it is forced to do so. It is for this reason that Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Karen Hughes, was tasked in 2005 by President Bush to lead efforts to change this situation. Yet, far from overseas reaction being seen simply as an indictment of certain past and current US foreign policies, the Republicans have adroitly used it to gather the American people around the patriotic flag waved by George Bush by his presenting overseas attitudes as being a rejection of America's values and ideological support for terrorism around the world. These concepts are contained in the terms of her appointment as promulgated by the Department of State.
In testimony to the House Appropriations subcommittee in 2004, Margaret Tutwiler expressed this perception on behalf of the State Department by saying that United States's standing abroad had deteriorated to such an extent that "it will take us many years of hard, focused work" to restore it. This view is supported by Democrats in the heated rhetoric of the mid-term elections who, in referring to the damage that has been done to US foreign relations, feel compelled to emphasis its gravity by subscribing to the White House hyperbole that it will take the years to repair that Tutwiler warns .
This is the myth that this administration wants you to believe. Certainly, if the Bush administration analysis of why resentment abroad exists is correct, then it will take centuries, not decades, to align the diverse cultures and traditions of the rest of the world alongside the particular mix of naturally arising and specifically designed values that are a reflection of the historical evolution of the United States.
The alternative view, that it is not what the United States is but what it does that is the cause of this deterioration in international relations, then the fix is simpler and much faster.
The truth is that in many parts of the world, the damage is not long-term nor will it take many years to restore the United States back to its leadership role.
I comment on this situation as a European, and it as a European that I bring to bear a particular historical perspective to the current problems faced by your country.
For most of my life, the major concern has been dominated by the largely unrealised fear of the withdrawal of the United States into isolationism. This was not simply due to a concern that a political policy of economic nationalism and protectionism would prevent the progress of the world economy, but a real recognition that the free world needed the stabilisation that US engagement would produce. This is deep rooted in the psyche of not just Europe but in many other parts of the world. Even in those countries where cultural and other ties are not so strong, there remains recognition of a continued need for economic and political reciprocity with the United States that even six years of the current administration cannot erase.
Andres Oppenheimer commented in the Miami Herald in November, 2005 that "we may see growing calls for a U.S. withdrawal from regional integration plans -- and the world in general -- in coming years. A new poll by the Pew Research Center reveals that, as unhappy as Americans are with President Bush and the Iraq war fiasco, they are even more skeptical about the benefits of a greater U.S. "internationalism."
The historical perspective suggests that the prospect of withdrawal by your country is of deeper and greater long-term real concern to much of the world than any current issues about the nature of present United States involvement in its affairs.
I do not underestimate the extent to which the United States has alienated the international community. As was reported in October, 2006, the bi-partisan Pew Research Center found that citizens across the globe continued the disastrous slide in confidence in George Bush and his policies, with his approval ratings plummeting, for example, to 15% in France, 7% in Spain and a 3% in Turkey. This follows the Pew findings in June 2006 that:
America's global image has again slipped and support for the war on terrorism has declined even among close U.S. allies like Japan. The war in Iraq is a continuing drag on opinions of the United States, not only in predominantly Muslim countries but in Europe and Asia as well. And despite growing concern over Iran's nuclear ambitions, the U.S. presence in Iraq is cited at least as often as Iran - and in many countries much more often - as a danger to world peace.
So was Karen Hughes right, as reported in September, when she repeated the conventional wisdom that "The anti-Americanism, the concern around the world . . . this ideological struggle, it's not going to change" quickly. It's going to be the work of years and maybe decades."?
She is as wrong in this as she is as in dismissing the Iraq war as simply " the latest excuse" for anti-American grievance in the Muslim world" and in simplifying attitudes to being that "there is long-standing disagreement with U.S. support for Israel."
The Iraq war is not "the latest excuse" for anti-Americanism. It is the major reason for the degree of current attitudes around the world. If Bush recognizes it, then certainly he does not want to admit this simple fact. The Pew poll found that America's continued involvement in Iraq was seen as a worse problem than Iran and its nuclear ambitions.
Karen Hughes is wrong, too, about the broad view of the Israel/Palestine situation. The majority of the rest of the world agrees that a major part of resolution in the Middle East is the establishment of two nation states and is as at least supportive of Israel as it is of Palestine in achieving peace through this means.
The cause of rejection is not what the State Department describes as "rejection of America's values and ideological support for terrorism". It is as ludicrous to say this, as the State Department web site continues to do, as was the simplistic and wrong answer from George Bush, to the question asked immediately after 9/11 as to "why does the world hate us", that there is hatred of your freedoms and values. In the main, the world is rejecting not what the United States represents or even wants to achieve so much as how it wants to achieve it.
George W. Bush does not want you to believe this because it exposes the simple truth that it is him and the current Republican foreign relations policies that the world rejects. It is not a rejection per se of the role of the United States as a world leader and most certainly not its people.
That is why George Bush and the State Department are wrong in wanting you to believe that it will be "years and maybe decades" for attitudes to the United States to change.
Margaret Tutwiler in her evidence some two years ago said that this was a problem "we have regrettably gotten into over many years through both Democratic and Republican administrations". It is too easy to reject this as simply being an attempt to shift some of the blame to previous White House incumbents.
In a thoughtful article by Julia E. Sweig, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, in the August 15, 2006 edition of the Los Angeles Times, there is a useful analysis of some of reasons for the current level of anti-Americanism. She included:
Cold War legacy: U.S. intervention in Vietnam, and covert attempts to overthrow governments in Iran, Guatemala and Cuba, among others, created profound distrust of U.S. motives throughout the developing world. Europeans also disdain these policies and bemoan the cultural coarseness of Americanization sweeping their continent.
Americans, by contrast, tend to dismiss this side of the Cold War. Gore Vidal famously referred to this country as the United States of Amnesia. We're all about moving forward, getting over it, a nation of immigrants for whom leaving the past behind was a geographic, psychological and often political act. As the last guy standing when the Cold War ended, in 1989, we expected the world to embrace free markets and liberal democracy.
Power and powerlessness: Power generates resentment. But the United States has lost the ability to see its power from the perspective of those with less of it. In Latin America, for example, U.S. policies -- whether on trade, aid, democracy, drugs or immigration -- presumed that Latin Americans would automatically see U.S. interests as their own. And when denied deference, we sometimes lash out, as did Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld when he lumped Germany, a close U.S. ally, with Cuba and Libya because Berlin opposed the Iraq war.
Globalization: In the 1990s, our government, private sector and opinion makers sold globalization as virtually synonymous with Americanization. President Clinton promised that open markets, open societies and smaller government would be the bridge to the 21st century. So where globalization hasn't delivered, the U.S. is blamed.
Julia Sweig and I are at odds over the speed with which the United States can recover its position in the world. I have a feeling, however, that this is simply a matter of our having a different definition of the extent of recovery that is needed in order for effective working relationships to be regained. The first major steps can, I believe, be accomplished very quickly.
Certainly, I agree with her completely that Democrats will do well to examine, rather than feel that they simply have to robustly defend, their own past policies and to revise these publicly and openly. They can afford to do so. Never have they been faced with an opposition whose policies have so completely failed and are seen to have failed. They will lose no electoral advantage by being honest in their own assessment of what is needed to restore United States standing in the world.
This is a powerful statement that Democrats can make over the next two years in the run up to 2008. Elections will not be won on negative messages that simply remind voters of the depths to which your international esteem has been plunged by the current administration. They will be won by offering real hope of improvement and, if coupled with carefully formulated policies over the next two years, it is not unrealistic to foresee real change in world attitudes from the simple act of a change in leadership, not in basic values. Much of the world is ready and waiting for this renewed strength in your foreign policy. It will bring the United States back into its proper and rightful role in the community of nations faster than the current incumbents in the State Department want the electorate to recognize.
This alternative vision compares well with that of the present administration, who are simply offering the prospect of the American people being huddled together within circled wagons in defence against the hostility that it is constantly told surrounds them.
(Cross posted from ePluribus Media)