Requiem for Bush's Unipolar Dream?
by Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - A week before the Group of Eight (G8) summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, U.S. President George W. Bush finds his power and authority -- both at home and abroad -- at their lowest ebb.
With his approval ratings falling back into the cellar after a brief bounce following last month's death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, escalating violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and between Israelis and Palestinians, and shows of defiance by the two surviving members of the "Axis of Evil", Iran and North Korea, Bush's stature is much diminished compared to his previous G-8 appearances.
For
, a 'multi-polar world' in which all countries do not simply defer to the U.S. is as repulsive as a political system in which they must compromise not only with Congress as a co-equal branch of government, but even with Democrats.
The man whose efforts to install a national order based on the dominance of the executive and a compliant Congress and a global order based primarily on U.S. military power and compliant "coalitions of the willing" now finds both under unprecedented challenge -- from the Supreme Court to Somalia.
The latest and boldest challenge, of course, was this week's launch by North Korea of at least seven missiles -- on the Fourth of July, no less -- despite the president's explicit warning less than a week before that such a move was "unacceptable".
But, now that the deed is done, it remains unclear what, if anything, Bush can do about it, particularly without strong support from Russia, China, and South Korea, the three members of the Six-Party Talks that have been urging him to lift financial sanctions against Pyongyang as a way to get it back to negotiating a rollback of its nuclear arms programme.
Pyongyang's "in-your-face" defiance came as Washington, in this case backed -- albeit somewhat uncertainly -- by its European allies, demanded that Iran agree to indefinitely suspend its uranium-enrichment programme before the G-8 summit or face sanctions at the U.N. Security Council.
But most analysts believe Tehran will offer at best an ambiguous reply by Washington's deadline, sufficiently ambiguous to ensure that Moscow and Beijing will continue opposing sanctions, and that, ultimately, Washington will have to compromise on key positions that it has so far refused to concede
The rest of the article is at: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0707-10.htm
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