WHERE DID IT GO WRONG, GEORGE?

Gerard Baker, a friend of America, in today's London Times Online, has a devastating, perhaps slightly overstated, critique of U.S. foreign policy entitled: "It sounded so good to start with, But where did it all go wrong, George?" Read the whole thing, but in line with today's earlier post, "Failure of the Will," it finishes this way:

...the US could take the risk of alienating the world and discarding international law only if its leadership was going to be effective. Instead its leadership has been desultory and uncertain and tragically ineffective.

It tried unilateral pre-emption in Iraq, but never really had the will to see it through. So with Iran, it went all mushy and multilateralist. In Lebanon, it thought it would cover all the bases - start by aggressively supporting Israel, then go all peacenik, holding hands with the UN in a touching chorus of Kumbaya.

Now we have the worst of all worlds. Not only is the US despised around the globe, it can't even make its supposed hegemony work.

It's one thing to be seen as the bully in the schoolyard; it's quite another when people realise the bully is actually incapable of getting anybody else to do what he wants. It's unpleasant when people stop respecting you, but it's positively terrifying when they stop fearing you.

What we have now is a situation in which the world's only superpower, with the largest economic and military advantage any country has ever enjoyed on Earth, is pinned down like Gulliver, tormented by an army of fundamentalist Lilliputians.

Some will say that the US's ineffectiveness is a direct result of the loss of its "soft" power. Alienating the rest of the world has weakened its ability to achieve its objectives. Idiocies such as Abu Ghraib and the brief flirtation with torture as a legitimate instrument undoubtedly hurt America's image. But I don't truly see how the failings in the Middle East could have been avoided by Washington's being nicer to foreigners. What's been missing is resolute leadership.

It is hard for me to recall a time when the world was such a scary place. No one should rejoice at America's weakness. The world is scarier still because of it.

I can't put it another way. It's a sorry state, but worse still is that our current political quagmire doesn't offer another choice. We elected Mr. Bush, and I supported him, (and by the way still do as there's no other choice). But we're where we are in a very large part because six years of unremitting political hatred has precluded actual discussion of how to improve execution of our policies. The Democrat party has offered nothing...they have offered no idea or suggestion other than to leave...to "cut and run," or, before that, the very "Multilateralism" and French-Kissing that has brought us to this pass.

The President's conception was noble, and likely correct, but the execution has been faulty.

So, here's a question on the Management 101 Final Exam: Just how does one go about improving performance of a critical employee in a real world situation? a) Belittle him constantly; b) Harrass him every second; c) Delay any action he takes and harass his assistants; d) Define his weaknesses and help him improve in those areas.

The Political Class has failed this exam, and we're in sorry-ass shape because of it. If the Electorate as a whole ever got to thinking of something beyond Jon Benet Ramsay, it'd string the whole shebang from a lamp pole.