"ONCE THERE WAS SOMEONE TO LOOK UP TO"

That's the title of an obituary for American global leadership in the Suedeutsche Zeitung. According to the Sueddeutsche, the French, Russians and the Bush administration were not really that far apart in terms of their concrete goals for Iraq: "disarmament, a final deadline for Saddam, combined with the credible threat of the use of force." This argument is quite foreign to members of the mainstream American media of late (many of whom, like George Will, have gotten lost in the maze of self-righteous and shrill denunciations of French obstructionism). The Sueddeutsche's broader point is worth listening to, however, so I will quote the final sections of the editorial and then translate, roughly, below:

Die Unfähigkeit Amerikas zum Kompromiss und zum Dialog hat ihre Ursache in der Ideologisierung der Außenpolitik. Ideologien lassen selten Raum für Zwischentöne. Aber Außenpolitik, vor allem die in den Zeiten vor George W. Bush betriebene realpolitische Interessenspolitik der USA, braucht die Unschärfe, die Zwischentöne. Die Show-Down-Strategie im Sicherheitsrat verzichtet nun auf den Spielraum, sie lässt lediglich Platz für die Bush-Doktrin: Entweder ihr seid für uns, oder ihr seid gegen uns.

Der amerikanischen Außenpolitik ist damit ihr höchstes Gut verloren gegangen: die Legitimität ihres Führungsanspruchs. Man mag darüber streiten, ob ein nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg geformter Sicherheitsrat Legitimität vermitteln kann. Im Kosovo etwa handelte das Gremium nicht, und dennoch war die von den USA angeführte Militäraktion legitim, weil nur so ein weiterer Völkermord auf dem Balkan verhindert werden konnte und weil die Obstruktions-Front aus niederen Motiven handelte.

Jetzt aber fehlt den USA diese Legitimität. Selbst eine Befürworter-Koalition aus neun mehr oder weniger gedungenen Staaten würde daran wenig ändern. Washington verdankt die demokratiestiftende und koalitionsbildende Rolle seiner Kraft als Vorbild. Wer Vorbild ist, der schafft sich Legitimität. Diese Kraft wird mit der Kriegsentscheidung verloren gehen.

American inability to reach for compromise and dialogue is caused by the current ideological nature of its foreign policy. Ideologies don't allow room for tones "in between." But foreign policy, especially the kind of real-political policy of interests that was pursued by the U.S. before George W. Bush, requires fuzziness, tones "in between." The strategy of "show down" in the Security Council renounces room for manouver; it only allows for the Bush Doctrine: you're either for us, or against us.

American foreign policy has thus lost is most important possession: the legitimacy of its claim to leadership. One can argue whether or not the Security Council, formed after WWII, can still act in a legitimate fashion. In Kosovo the body didn't act, but the military action led by the U.S. was still legitimate, because only through such an action could further genocide in the Balkans be prevented, and because those who obstructed the action had only low motives.

But now the US has lost this legitimacy. Even a supportive coalition made up of states that have been more or less employed for the purpose can not change this fact. Washington had power as a model [i.e., the U.S. was a country to look up to] because of its democracy-creating and coalition-leading role. When you act as a model for others, you create legitimacy. This power will be gone once the decision for war is made.

In the echo-chamber of punditry (both on-line and in the broader media), these arguments have been lost. The U.S. has renounced the moral authority of its leadership. Witness, for example, the sneering retorts to those who argue that a doctrine of pre-emption is not a wise policy here -- not, in limited and clearly defined cases, pre-emption itself, but a trumpeted doctrine of pre-emption. There's a big difference! If I remember the story right, even Henry Kissinger saw that there was a big difference here.

The usual response is twofold: Israel blew up a nuclear power plant in Iraq, and, at any rate, the rest of the world is going to do what it wants regardless of whether or not we invade Iraq. I fail to see how these claims -- the Israelis preempted when there was a clear case of a danger to them, and we don't have a leadership role anyways -- help to meet the criticisms. We can't simultaneously gloat over the attachment of the "new Europe" because of our "commitment to freedom" and argue that others will not take cues or inspiration from the uses to which we put our power. And the existence of a nuclear power plant next door is hardly the situation that faces the U.S. in Iraq. Israel didn't have ambitious plans that it was going to occupy Iraq, save the Iraqi people, install generals as leaders of a new military government there, and democratize the country. Note carefully how Bush advisors and war defenders shift the terms of the debate, whenever the evidence of Iraq's danger to the U.S. becomes shaky, to the questioner's apparent lack of concern for the welfare of Iraqis, a subject we didn't hear a heck of a lot about from the administration either during the presidential campaign or before the WTC and Pentagon attacks. See, for example, Richard Perle here. (link via Atrios). The parallels with our arguments in favor of saving Vietnam from Ho Chi Minh are too stark for my taste, to be honest. Vietnam is not irrelevant here, even if the desert war is likely to be very different from the nasty war of attrition in Vietnam.