International Herald Tribune: Neither Respected nor Feared

[marmar]

Neither respected nor feared
By Geoffrey Wheatcroft Published: September 3, 2008



BATH, England:

In an exalted phrase, the keynote speaker at the Republican convention reviewed the record of the administration, and asked, "When have we rested more secure in friendship with all mankind?" That wasn't in St. Paul, where the Republicans are gathered this week, but at the 1904 Republican convention in Chicago, when the speaker was Elihu Root, a past Secretary of War and future Secretary of State.

His words were sonorous then, and they are haunting now. They will not be repeated this year, because they could not be. A senior American politician might have said something similar in 1920, or 1945 or 1960. But no Republican now - and no Democrat - could utter Root's words without inviting utter derision.

Today there might be a more bitter question: When has America rested less secure in friendship with all mankind?

And that explains the intense interest which this year's presidential election has inspired beyond the shores of the United States. It's not just Obamania - there's no point in denying that Senator Barack Obama is the man most people outside the United States would like to win - but he was one of three potential candidates until Senator Hillary Clinton conceded defeat who were all fascinating simply in personal terms: a septuagenarian war hero, a woman, a black man.

The election absorbs us in Europe - and others in Africa and Asia - because we can see that a general crisis spreading around the globe is directly linked to the follies and failures of American policy. In his new book, "The Much Too Promised Land," about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which he used to be engaged as a State Department official, Aaron David Miller puts it with lapidary succinctness. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/03/opinion/edwheatcroft.php