Analysis: Bush Slump May Hobble World Role

[leftchick]

<snip>

Just a few years ago, rival and allied nations alike fretted that a cocky Bush administration was attempting to impose its will around the world.

Such swagger is harder to find these days.

As Bush prepares to depart Monday on a trip to Asia, questions abound about the global consequences of a U.S. president hobbled by domestic setbacks.

<snip>

"Behind the scenes, there's a recognition that the United States is tied down somewhat in Iraq and preoccupied domestically, and that this is a tough time for the Bush administration," said Kurt Campell, who was deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asia and the Pacific during the Clinton administration.

"It comes at a time when China's stock is extremely high in Asia as a whole. There's a growing recognition that China has taken enormous advantage of the challenges facing the Bush administration, in Iraq and elsewhere, to consolidate its gains in Asia," said Campell, now with the Center for International and Strategic Studies.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051114/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_vs_the_world_4

[mmonk]

1. I believe the administration lost its

world role before he was hobbled politically here.

[Zenlitened]

2. Yep. No question. - n/t

[leftchick]

3. yes, and it is reported here in the article...

my favorite part....

<snip>

Presidents, most recently Bill Clinton, have drawn strength from foreign trips and basked in the approval of American-flag waving crowds. But Bush has drawn muted responses from many world leaders and a larger-than-usual share of anti-American demonstrations.

He never was particularly well-liked overseas, to begin with.

Now, allies might be even more emboldened in opposing positions staked out by the U.S. And antagonistic governments in North Korea, Iran and elsewhere might be less intimidated by Bush's threats, seeing how bogged down the U.S. is in Iraq.

"I think he is less scary to them," said Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy specialist at the Brookings Institution.

[Double T]

5. Where ever bush goes he breeds destruction and hatred.......

and they call 'this' a world leader. I hardly think so.

[Joe Chi Minh]

7. Yes, the article clearly amounts, not so much to damning with

faint praise, as to blessing with faint desparagement! They always like to start with their hero postioned at one level or more above where he's actually at. As with the polls.

[Skittles]

4. it is bush inc's policies that have hobbled America

the same cause as their "slump"

[tularetom]

6. Kurt Campbell is a master of euphemisms

"There's a growing recognition that China has taken enormous advantage of the challenges facing the Bush admininstration..." when he really means China has watched bush get the US into a clusterfuck in Iraq and into major debt with themselves and other Asian nations and is ready to kick him in the nuts to the detriment of the American economy.

[bleedingheart]

8. what world role? that of warmongering despot???

[PATRICK]

9. American foreign policy in ruins

There has been a natural rivalry and pressure to get away from Washington's influence. Junior's insolent and stupid going for all the marbles had left most world leaders reacting like our Dems. Measured cooperation and limited intelligent resistance. What they fear is also what they hope, which shows why they have been especially soft on harder responses(which would affect them economically even without the petulant retaliation for which this regime is noted). They fear Bush's adventurism and domination, but this also, especially by abject failure, destroys what they have a hard time opposing- America's dominance in world affairs.

It is hamhandedly discrediting and exhausting all the "wise" policies of the past back to the 19th Century. It is failing. It is allowing "allies" to smoothly move behind the tottering giant to replace the post WWII status quo without exacerbating the crippling self-suicide of the American economy. Will it come down to Bush holding a knife to the US throat and demanding the ransom of submission while waving nukes at the world? In effect it has, but it is the worldwide realization of that and the submission of the victimized US that is the goal of rivals.

You simply have to be more competent than that to dare smarter world powers for the Kingship of the Mountain. Many have thought that this unbelievable opportunity to hoodwink the captive US was ideal and easy and they mostly could wait in the wings doing Bush favors. Of course it will be much uglier than that and more costly, but when the smoke clears the already dead corpse on the barroom floor will be revealed as
tainted US foreign policy as we have known it for six decades at least. Many here and abroad would say good riddance.