Neoconservatives are likely to be wrong on any number of issues. But there is one critique of theirs that, somewhat to my dismay, has struck me as more compelling than I would have originally hoped. There is an argument to be made that the United States is weaker – and by this, I mean less admired, less respected, and more likely to be perceived as irrelevant – than it was under the Bush administration. It is difficult to establish causality here, since the original cause was President Bush’s failed policies. We are still paying the price for those failures today.
That said, there are some things we do know. According to recent polling, the United States, under Obama, has lower favorability ratings in several Arab countries than it did in the final years of the Bush administration. It was possible, and in some cases fairly easy, to separate Bush from the United States. Arabs seemed to understand that his policies did not necessarily reflect anything true or essential about America’s character. Moreover, those of us who strongly opposed Bush policy told our Arab (or Latin American or European) friends that it was just a matter of time before America regained a sense of prudence.
As I’ve written before, there is little I can now say to my Arab colleagues. We all got what we wished for (even the Muslim Brotherhood was rooting for Obama) – someone who seemed one of the more brilliant, inspiring, and unique American politicians in recent memory. He had a Muslim name, a Muslim family, lived in the Muslim world, and seemed to have an appreciation for the place of grievance in Arab life. What many Arabs have taken away from this is that the problem with U.S. foreign policy is a structural one. Because even with a “good” president, American foreign policy, as they see it, is quite bad. In short, the U.S. is now irredeemable in a way it never would have been under a President McCain.
MORE:
http://www.democracyarsenal.org/
