US Daily: Allies See America’s Power Deteriorating

America’s old allies believe that policies of the US President, Barack Obama, will put this country’s power in danger and make its rivals more powerful than before, US daily Washington Post said.
“This concern about erosion of American power is powerfully stated in ‘The End of History Ends’ by Walter Russell Mead in the American Interest. Mead warns that Obama’s attempts to disengage from the over-commitments of the George W. Bush presidency have emboldened what he calls the Central Powers, Russia, China and Iran. With the United States in seeming retreat, these rivals ‘think they have found a way to challenge and ultimately to change the way global politics work’,” David Ignatius said in the Washington Post article.

Ignatius said that the views of Mead are too pessimistic but it shares the views of America’s old allies such as Saudi Arabia.

He said that although part of this anger is due to the Washington’s diplomatic opening to Iran, but it is mostly because they fear that this kind of Gorbachev-like reforms could undermine America’s power and make its traditional allies more vulnerable.

“One Arab analyst argues that as Obama has sought to rebalance US power, he has adopted “the Ostrich doctrine” — meaning that he has ignored the reversals that have followed US attempts to disentangle itself in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, where the United States spent more than a trillion dollars and thousands of lives, the government is now effectively an Iranian client, but that hasn’t drawn a US reaction. In Afghanistan, where the United States also devoted enormous effort, President Hamid Karzai thumbs his nose at America and gets away with it. Foreign leaders worry that Obama doesn’t see that US power is fading,” he underlined.

Ignatius added that Obama’s Administration may justify that although these policies may enrage America’s old friends, it helps to define a new order especially in the Middle East region and makes it more stable.