America's Map for the 21st Century?

Wanna See My Map?

This is my definitive map of Talibanistan, Darfur's genocide, the Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan Straits, Palestine, and Iran's nuclear sites, (not to mention the future of our domestic American economy and infra-structure). It's all rolled up into ONE!! Wanna see it?

This is why we are impotent on the world stage. On 12 September 2001, we were the world's last global power. On 20 March 2003, when Bush began his un-provoked, unnecessary, largely unilateral invasion and unplanned occupation of Iraq (UULUIUOI), we began our current long and interminable descent from being a 1st rate world power into some middling ranking.

How would you describe it? Are we not merely the number one spectators of the world scene in the already grossly disfigured 21st Century? (When we are not distracted by Paris Hilton?) Maybe the United States has become the number one complainer, pleader, griper, accuser, etc. Because that is all we can be as long as our sword is buried in I-Rock.

The diplomacy we can conduct is laughable. Bush and Cheney have turned Teddy Roosevelt on his head. With them at the helm, our U.S.A. is reduced to talking loudly and carrying a wimpy, drooping stick in front of us.

Baker and Hamilton's ISG Report directs the United States to be more multilateral with Syria and Iran? Yeah, a good idea whose time has come last came on 9-12-01. But that means we'll be asking them to help us pull Bush and Cheney's chestnuts out of the range of fire in Iraq's free-for-all. So that we can have a graceful exit?

I don't know how many carrots we have left, but our big stick is stuck in the desert of Iraquagmire. As Frederick the Great once observed,

Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments.

Until Bush and Cheney leave the stage or we leave Iraq - whichever happens first - America's international audience will wait impatiently and not altogether politely for the musicians to arrive.