End of Empire?
Published: 04 October, 2011, 17:50
*The Americans are growing increasingly skeptical of their nations prospects, and not just on the economy. The Palestinian Authoritys recent decision to apply for UN recognition despite President Obamas explicit advice not to do so has shown that the United States is losing its role as a major architect of the Middle East peace process, as the media put it. Moreover, the very peace process the US was supposed to moderate has been essentially defunct for some time. Is this a minor failure of Washingtons Middle East policies, or is it a major downturn signaling the end of Americas global hegemony?
The extraordinary tableau at the United Nations underscored a stark new reality: the United States is facing the prospect of having to share, or even cede, its decades-long role as the architect of Middle East peacemaking, the International Herald Tribune wrote in this regard.
And it is not just the Middle East. The United States has proved unable to address a whole number of critical challenges of modern-day global politics, and its inclination to launch Tomahawks every time it feels like deposing a defiant foreign leader has fuelled growing discontent around the world. So far, the Americans are effectively free to bomb and invade other countries at their own whim, but in some five or maybe ten years, they might wake up to a different reality and find their blank cheque is gone for good.
The demise of the United States as the global super-power started in Iraq. And whether the people in Washington, D.C. realize it or not, this process has now become irreversible. Several prominent scholars have warned about this, including Samuel Huntington, author of The Clash of Civilizations, and Harvard professor Paul Kennedy, who studies the pattern and logic of great power declines. Such projections used to be commonly shrugged off as End-Times preachery in the United States and in most of Europe. But a recent issue of Foreign Policy ran a cover story with a rather telling lead: This time its serious.
It is indeed. It is no coincidence that Time published one of its issues around the same time featuring the portrait of George Washington which features famously on Americas dollar bill sporting a black eye, complete with the title: The Great American Downgrade.
American pundit Fareed Zakaria believes the US political system is no longer functional, and it became apparent last July and August when President Obama and the US Congress just could not come to terms over an issue as vital as the national debt ceiling.
It really is striking, considering that only 20 years ago, as the Berlin Wall came down, swiftly followed by the Soviet Union, everyone in the United States believed this was the end of history, and the US would now be the worlds sole, uncontested super -power, and would not need anyones consent or opinions in pursuing its global hegemony.
Today, it is already apparent that we are about to witness the end of American hegemony. The Bush administration regarded the 9/11 tragedy as a milestone that would mark the era of the American Empire, which would top Ancient Rome in might and grandeur. Following the trampling of Afghanistan and then Iraq, the rest of the world was expected to kneel to American leadership, a power peerless in human history.
But this did not happen. The United States has made the perennial mistake that every single empire made in the past: it gave in to the flattering notion that it could direct history and make its heyday perpetual. But history never stops nor pauses, and there is no power on Earth that can impose itself on history for good. Right now, history seems to be turning its back on America. George Washington with a black eye may be just the beginning.
And when america dies israel will die
*Alexey Pushkov
Published: 04 October, 2011, 17:50
*The Americans are growing increasingly skeptical of their nations prospects, and not just on the economy. The Palestinian Authoritys recent decision to apply for UN recognition despite President Obamas explicit advice not to do so has shown that the United States is losing its role as a major architect of the Middle East peace process, as the media put it. Moreover, the very peace process the US was supposed to moderate has been essentially defunct for some time. Is this a minor failure of Washingtons Middle East policies, or is it a major downturn signaling the end of Americas global hegemony?
The extraordinary tableau at the United Nations underscored a stark new reality: the United States is facing the prospect of having to share, or even cede, its decades-long role as the architect of Middle East peacemaking, the International Herald Tribune wrote in this regard.
And it is not just the Middle East. The United States has proved unable to address a whole number of critical challenges of modern-day global politics, and its inclination to launch Tomahawks every time it feels like deposing a defiant foreign leader has fuelled growing discontent around the world. So far, the Americans are effectively free to bomb and invade other countries at their own whim, but in some five or maybe ten years, they might wake up to a different reality and find their blank cheque is gone for good.
The demise of the United States as the global super-power started in Iraq. And whether the people in Washington, D.C. realize it or not, this process has now become irreversible. Several prominent scholars have warned about this, including Samuel Huntington, author of The Clash of Civilizations, and Harvard professor Paul Kennedy, who studies the pattern and logic of great power declines. Such projections used to be commonly shrugged off as End-Times preachery in the United States and in most of Europe. But a recent issue of Foreign Policy ran a cover story with a rather telling lead: This time its serious.
It is indeed. It is no coincidence that Time published one of its issues around the same time featuring the portrait of George Washington which features famously on Americas dollar bill sporting a black eye, complete with the title: The Great American Downgrade.
American pundit Fareed Zakaria believes the US political system is no longer functional, and it became apparent last July and August when President Obama and the US Congress just could not come to terms over an issue as vital as the national debt ceiling.
It really is striking, considering that only 20 years ago, as the Berlin Wall came down, swiftly followed by the Soviet Union, everyone in the United States believed this was the end of history, and the US would now be the worlds sole, uncontested super -power, and would not need anyones consent or opinions in pursuing its global hegemony.
Today, it is already apparent that we are about to witness the end of American hegemony. The Bush administration regarded the 9/11 tragedy as a milestone that would mark the era of the American Empire, which would top Ancient Rome in might and grandeur. Following the trampling of Afghanistan and then Iraq, the rest of the world was expected to kneel to American leadership, a power peerless in human history.
But this did not happen. The United States has made the perennial mistake that every single empire made in the past: it gave in to the flattering notion that it could direct history and make its heyday perpetual. But history never stops nor pauses, and there is no power on Earth that can impose itself on history for good. Right now, history seems to be turning its back on America. George Washington with a black eye may be just the beginning.
And when america dies israel will die
*Alexey Pushkov
