While the
Wall Street Journal op-ed page is populated by batshit crazy Wingnuts of the worst kind, its news pages are some of the best and most objective out there. For that reason, the Administration can't be too happy with this article from today's front page of the
Journall:
Bush Troubles at Home May Impair Power Abroad: Hurdles Rise on Trade Pacts, Nuclear Threats, Bringing Shift to Seeking Out Allies:
At the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.S. last month found itself unable to push through a proposal it championed to refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions over its nuclear program. Instead, in a body where resolutions normally pass unanimously, 12 of the 35 countries represented abstained, and one -- Venezuela -- voted no. Among the abstainers were Brazil, China, Pakistan, Russia and South Africa.
Many of you may remember that
video of a John Bolton speech before he became the U.N. Ambassador in which he said "There is no United Nation. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that is the United States, when it suits our interest, and when we can get others to go along." Also: "The United States makes the U.N. work when it wants it to work. And that is exactly the way it should be because the only question, the
only question for the United States is what's in our national interest, and if you don't like that, I'm sorry, because that is the fact"
Well, Mr. Bolton, according to this article from a newspaper even the Wingnuts respect and certainly cannot dismiss as part of the Liberal Media, it appears with Bush in place and you as our United Nations Ambassador the United States has become powerless in making the United Nations bend to what you believe is in our national interest:
Last month, in Geneva, the U.S. received a stiff rebuke at a U.N. gathering on digital technologies when the European Union sided with most other countries in a move to assert international control over the Internet, which is currently administered by a private concern under the eyes of the Commerce Department
While vowing to resist changes, U.S. officials said they were nonetheless shocked that even the EU had abandoned Washington's push to maintain the status quo.
The heart of the NeoCon's foreign policy ideology rests on the premise that we are the only remaining superpower and we get what we want because the rest of the world fears us. Well, guess what, boys, they don't fear us anymore. After seeing how you've handled Katrina and Rita and Wilma and Harriet and Valerie (My God, look at that list -- it's the revenge of the Broads. What could be more scary for these neanderthals on Halloween?) the rest of the world realizes they're dealing with a bunch of incompetent chickenshits. And when you factor into all of this the unmitigated failure of Iraq, the world realizes it's dealing with incompetent chickshit chickhawks:
An underlying problem for Mr. Bush, of course, is continuing anger in Europe and elsewhere over his decision to go to war in Iraq more than two years ago without full international support. That continues to hamper the administration's efforts to get more international help there. But beyond Iraq, the administration seems to have made some mid-course adjustments in its own foreign policy to take into account its changed position. For one thing, it is looking more for help from friends and allies than in Mr. Bush's first term.
On issues ranging from North Korea to Iran to Syria, the administration is counting on either international organizations or ad hoc groups of allies for help. On the sensitive topic of Iran, the State Department recently advanced the idea of moving from confrontation to diplomatic engagement -- though that idea seems likely to fall away after the statements by Iran's new president last week that Israel should be wiped off the world map.
The broadest concerns, though, focus on how America's current problems may affect international economic deliberations this fall. Escalating American budget and trade deficits have complicated the U.S.'s efforts to deliver its usual sermons to other countries on getting their economic houses in order.
Earlier this month in China, for instance, Treasury Secretary John Snow and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan lectured China's top economic officials on the value of a flexible exchange rate and having an economy focused more on consumption and less on exports. What they got back were extended discourses on America's abysmal savings rate and soaring budget deficit -- both large contributors to the global economic imbalance that has turned China into such a massive U.S. creditor.
At the same time, the U.S. may find it harder to complete the outline of a new world trade agreement at a meeting in Hong Kong in December. Getting a deal done will require the U.S. not only to cut its own trade barriers, but to press developed and developing countries alike to do the same.
Now, some trade experts fret that the U.S. may have less ability to persuade skeptical developing countries to back dramatic international trade liberalization. The U.S. cause has been further undermined, they say, by mounting protectionism at home. A crucial trade vote this summer, to seal a trade pact with Central America, squeaked through Congress by just two votes after prolonged arm-twisting by the Bush administration. And that was before Rep. Tom DeLay, the Republicans' front man in corralling votes, had to resign his leadership position because of his own indictment on alleged election-finance misdeeds.
"The U.S. is dependent on other countries for financing, so can't press as hard as it might" in trade talks, says Fred Bergsten, director of the Institute for International Economics. Meanwhile, other nations are happily sending record levels of exports to the U.S. and "don't want to do anything to change the trade surpluses."
Ouch! Mr. Bolton, would you like some A-1 Steak Sauce for those words you're gonna haved to eat? The very foundations of this administration's foreign policy are based on their belief that the United States is omnipotent. Not only were they deluded, they have sapped our country of any leverage in dealing with other countries. If Republicans thought American prestige was tarnished after the administration of that peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia, look at how blackened it is after allowing this fratboy-with-delusions-of-cowboydom from Kennebunkport to ride in the, ahem, saddle.
