By Michael Lind
Financial Times, June 1, 2004
The image of America the Liberator has been replaced by the image of America the occupier and America the torturer
The debacle in Iraq has discredited the American neoconservative dream of a benevolent CS empire, freed from the petty restraints of multilateral diplomacy and international law. But the neoconservative vision is not the only dream that has died in the rubble of Falluja and torture cells of Abu Ghraib prison. What until recently was the alternative endorsed by many Democrats and some centrist Republicans US world leadership exercised through multilateral security institutions can also now be included in the collateral damage done by George W. Bush's war In Iraq.
... The implications of Mr Bush s inadvertent destruction of the American mystique have yet to sink into America's progressive internationalists. Many hawkish neoliberals hope that if John Kerry is elected, Europeans. Arabs and others will let bygones be bygones. If only it were so. A new administration could do much to repair the damage that Mr Bush and his team have done to America s reputation. But it will take a generation or more to rehabilitate America s image.
The spring of 2004 may prove to be a turning point not only in the history of America but also in that of the world. Until recently, Bush critics could hope the Iraq war would be an unfortunate but minor episode ahead of a long period of benevolent US global hegemony. Now that America s reputation for benevolence and irresistible power has been severely damaged, the US will be forced to settle for a far more modest role in the world than that sought by both neoliberals and neoconservatives. Whether Mr Bush is re-elected or not, his legacy is already apparent.
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Carl
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