I've been arguing for a while that the Bush administration policies are making America weaker. The Bush policies rely on
hard power (military might) rather than
soft power (influence) to assert American dominance in the world.
I think we've seen the limits of hard power. We're bogged down in Iraq. The rest of the world sees how difficult it is for us to stabilize Iraq. Meanwhile, we're depending on foreign governments to finance our debt. What happens if China decides to invade Taiwan? What would we be able to do? I doubt we could take on the Chinese military, and we don't have much leverage on them, they control a lot of our debt and a significant proportion of our manufacturing.
People are beginning to notice. From Juan Cole comes this scenario:
juancole.com :
It seems pretty obvious that Iran will get the nuclear bomb and there is not much anyone can do about it. I'm not saying it is a good thing. I'm just saying that I can't imagine what would stop it.
One thing that might have stopped it was direct military action. But not all sorts of military action would likely be effective. A US or Israeli air strike on the centrifuges thought to be at Natanz is unlikely to be decisive. Centrifuges don't have to be kept all in the same place, and if Iran has 200 of them, they have almost certainly been spread around so that they could not be taken out with a single strike.
If an airstrike by the Americans or the Israelis would not likely entirely succeed, what are the options? The Israelis cannot easily mount a land war against Iran. It would be difficult to airlift armor and men to Iran across Jordan, Syria and Iraq, two of which would not give their permission for such a thing. Iran has a significant manpower advantage over Israel (70 million to 6.4 million), and showed in the 1980s that it could repulse an attack by a strong enemy.
The US can no longer mount a land campaign against Iran. It is bogged down in Iraq fighting a guerrilla war. The Iraqi Shiites would never put up with a US campaign against Shiite Iran. US stockpiles of smart weaponry are seriously depleted.
The US could not make up any slack from allies such as the UK. Tony Blair's parliamentary majority has been whittled down to only 66. About 40 Labour MPs routinely vote against his bills and intitiatives anyway. So his real majority may be razor-thin. He certainly could not convince this parliament to go to war in Iran, e.g.
So the military options are not apparent.
...
In essence, by concentrating on Iraq during the past two and a half decades, Israel and the US have foregone the practical opportunity to stop Iran. The Israeli air strike on the Osirak light water nuclear reactor in Iraq in the early 1980s signaled to countries like Iran that they should not put everything in one place. (The Israeli strike was in any case unnecessary-- light water reactors don't produce nuclear by-products for bomb making, in and of themselves.) Then by invading Iraq, the US made it impossible to use the military option against Iran. It is bogged down in a quagmire, and its credibility has been undermined internationally.
From today's Daily Kos is Putin's reaction to Bush's words on the Baltics:
www.dailykos.com :
In a May 4 interview with the CBS program "60 Minutes," to be broadcast on Sunday, Mr. Putin also reiterated complaints that America should not be lecturing him about rollbacks on democracy when "four years ago your presidential election was decided by the court."
While Bush has been sleeping, North Korea has made six nuclear weapons (thank you John Bolton). All the while, Bush has been making the ridiculous argument that there must be six-party talks, not two-party talks. It's all a part of his brilliant diplomatic initiatives of giving others nothing that they want while expecting them to give us what we want. Faith-based diplomacy?
I'm not sure why Democrats are afraid to take on Bush's foreign policy. His policies are incredibly harmful. He shouldn't get credit for saying pretty words like "democracy" and "freedom." He should only get credit for actually doing something.