Riffing off Matt Continetti's "Peace Party vs. Power Party" article, Paul Starr, at his new blog, trenchantly observes:
Far from making the United States stronger, Bush's policies have dissipated American power. In his speech, the president suggested that if the United States failed in Iraq, Iran would be emboldened. But Iran has obviously already been emboldened because its leaders believe that an America mired in Iraq can make only empty threats.
To use power ineffectually is to destroy it. Conservatives may have believed that the unilateral assertion of American military might is the best way to extend American influence abroad and promote democracy. The experience of the past several years, however, show how limited an understanding of power that is. The Bush strategy has undermined not just America's soft power--its ability to attract support throughout the world--but its hard power as well.
Indeed, our willingness to overextend our power has done nothing but expose its limits. And our incompetent management of our foreign affairs has further illuminated our essential weakness. Now Iran, and North Korea, and all manner of other "rogue" nations realize our army lacks manpower, understands we can't occupy even a weak nation like Iraq (much less them), sees that our polity is divided and our president weak and our people exhausted by battle and war. The "Power Party," in other words, has degraded America's power. And they did it by trading on the illusion of invincibility Bill Clinton's "Peace Party" painstakingly constructed. That intimidation factor did offer real power in foreign affairs, particularly in forcing other countries to offer concessions rather than face. Shame that we've lost that ability.
