The Most Important Event in This Century Was the Arrival of Bush

It is the end of a decade, and therefore time to determine the moment of the past ten years. For me, that is January 22, 2001; not September 11 of that year, the day Al Qaeda attacked Washington and New York.

Not October 7, 2001, when America started the war in Afghanistan, nor March 20, 2003, when America invaded Iraq. On that particular date in January 2001, George W. Bush was inaugurated as the 43rd president of the United States of America. It is difficult to determine how historians will eventually judge this first decade of this new millennium, but it appears that then, the American position of power was bartered away. For the skeptics: Even the American intelligence services, united in the National Intelligence Council, consider the decrease of power an indisputable fact.

The invasion of Afghanistan was justifiable after the attacks of September 11, 2001, but neglecting that war and the ill-founded attack on Iraq were historical blunders. Because of them, America, which had until that moment been the world’s undisputed superpower, landed in a bog from which there was no possible way out without a scratch.

This, added to the dishonoring of allies in the fight against terrorism (‘who is not with us, is against us’), the condemnation of countries that supposedly belong to the ‘axis of evil,’ the cornering of Russia and the killing of international treaties like the climate agreement of Kyoto, injured the sympathy for America worldwide. Rising government spending and a trade deficit with which America not only risked the value of the dollar, but became dependent on countries like China for closing the budget, further weakened its position. Lastly, the credit crisis worked as a catalyst.

A consequence of the decrease of economic and military might cost the U.S. political power, so that Washington had less and less say in determining the rules of the international game. That became painfully clear for Obama when he had to trade in the G-7 for the G-20 as the most important forum for the recovery of the world economy and when he returned from China empty-handed.

Is that bad? Yes, that is very bad. Maybe not for China, but it is for Western countries that are used to centuries-long dominance in world politics.

If the West has less to say in the matter, international institutions that have been invented by the West, such as the U.N., international laws and our values, like human rights and democracy, will lose their worth. And if the situation ever gets really tight for the delivery of oil, gas and other scarce resources, the West no longer stands in the front of the line.

If I look at the lists of dates for others, September 11 scores number 1 for many. A horrible event. But it is one the American neoconservatives have used for a series of the most serious mistakes, which gave Osama bin Laden exactly what he wanted: a weakened America.

Can all this still be repaired? I am afraid not. Thanks to Bush, Obama’s most important task for the new decade is managing the decay.

It is a comfort that the decay of Great Britain lasted over half a century and became very clear at the time of World War I, but that the country has never been reduced to beggary. America can delay the power decline by making a fist together with Europe.

For Europe, here lies the opportunity to support Obama. But Europe is not taking that chance for now, with the internally focused Dutch discussion on Uruzgan as a saddening example of European weakness.