http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_andrew_b_070101_our_next_president_n.htmOur Next President Needs to Be Well-Seasoned
by Andrew Bard Schmookler
I certainly agree with those who regard Barack Obama as an appealing and impressive fellow. And I thought John Edwards was a dynamite public speaker with an effective message when he ran for president in 2004. But I don't think either of them --or anyone else who lacks extensive experience in world affairs-- is what America needs, or what the world needs, in the next president of the United States.
These are not ordinary circumstances into which the next president will step. He or she will be following upon a presidency that has done extensive and profound damage to the world system, and to America's position within that system. The job of repairing that damage is of vital importance, and it is not a job for a neophyte in the workings of international affairs.
It is a vital job because American leadership has been, before the Bushite era, a valuable asset for both the United States and for the world. Many on the left don't care to recognize this fact, but it has been widely understood by most of the peoples of the world. This is not to deny America's various abuses of its power over the several generations before the Bushites. But had American leadership been absent during the period from, say, 1940 to 2000, the world would have been even more messed up than it has been.
The Bushites have made America into a feared and despised nation in a way the U.S. has never been before. And that leaves the world without any good and effective leadership, and nowhere else from which it is likely to come. Certainly not from Putin's Russia. Nor from the one-party, authoritarian regime that gunned down the students at Tienamen Square. Nor does Europe show any capacity yet to act together to fill that role.
In the face of such problems as the heightened instability of the Middle East, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, global terrorism, the increased animosities between the Islamic world and the West, the threat of a return of cold war rivalries, and global warming, the world deeply needs the re-emergence of a generally trustworthy, widely trusted, leader.
But it will take grace and expertise and judgment to re-establish any such trust and respect. The next American president will likely be welcomed by the world with some hope and relief that the dark days of the Bushite menace are passed, and new possibilities can be imagined. But hopes will not speedily undo the traumatically disturbing experience of the Bushite years.
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