America, the World's New Political Weakling?

My esteemed colleagues Theo Sommer and Matthias Nass again mourn America’s decline and fall because of the U.S. government shutdown.

That’s an old European reflex. As early as 1766 — before the United States was even a nation — the French naturalist Buffon reported that the New World was full of shockingly idiotic and leached out people and that European immigrants would degenerate further with each successive generation that went there.

Such predictions are as American as popcorn and rock n’ roll. First it was the Soviet Union — died 1991 — then the European Union, then the Japanese who people said would eventually dethrone America; now it’s China.

Didn’t Obama have to forgo his trip to Asia because Congress wouldn’t pass his budget? Isn’t the world’s last surviving superpower withdrawing from the world — first from Iraq and next from Afghanistan?

A new phase of “self-containment” is the right diagnosis from a president who has prescribed “nation building at home” for his country.

The man draws red lines in Syria that he regularly redraws. The U.S. presence in Europe has shrunk to 30,000 soldiers; at the height of the Cold War, it was ten times that number. The military option in response to Iran’s nuclear program has been taken off the table.

On the other hand, the per capita income in the U.S. is eight times that of China and 34 times that of the emerging India. America spends four times what China does on defense, so the decline may take a little while.

Such statistics are sort of like an extract from a bank statement. But what can Obama’s wealth buy in the global politics market? This guy who hesitates and procrastinates and prefers to put off decisions rather than jump right in to meet them? A glance at Syria and Iran reveals an interesting paradox.

Obama’s opponents think he’s a weakling and even his friends aren’t that thrilled with him. But let’s take a sober look at the bottom line.

Syria: It’s a fact that Obama has tried at any cost to avoid the use of force there for two years now. But he has stationed guided missile destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean along with a fleet of bombers just offstage in order to get the Russians on board and convince Assad that he really should surrender his chemical weapons. These aren’t signs of decline or paralysis. Power means not having to carry out your threats.

In Iran: Will the mullahs give up their nuclear weapons program or at least put it on hold when it’s at the brink of completion? Maybe. But the decisive thing is that the sanctions — initiated by George W. Bush and ramped up by Barack Obama — have proven effective. The new Iranian president has begun a charm offensive and wants, as he says, to begin a serious dialogue. Whoever can put together a global coalition that brings Iran to its knees without firing a single shot as Washington has done demonstrates power, not weakness.

One might even sum it up more to the point: Shutdown or no shutdown, a country that has supposedly lost its compass under Obama and can still get its way on two critical issues of global politics is about as weak as an elephant. An elephant that prefers to graze peacefully rather than trample everything in the jungle is still the biggest presence in the savanna.

What was it that heavyweight Helmut Kohl used to say? “I have been underestimated for decades. I have done very well that way.”