Superpower no more?

For years, we've assumed this was true. It was an easy assumption to make based on the amount of money we spend on our military and the high-tech weapons we've developed, from stealth bombers to precision missiles to satellites that can read license plates.

But to be a superpower means being able to impose your will, by force of arms when necessary. Clearly, if America can't defeat its enemies in Iraq – the remnants of Saddam Hussein's corrupt regime, al Qaeda “emir” Abu Musab Zarqawi, and suicide bombers eager for their 72 virgins in Heaven -- there is nothing superlative about American might.

America-haters understand this, and are encouraged by it. Ingmar Lee, a Canadian reader, emails me:

Once upon a time, the rules of war said that one army dressed up in red, the other in blue, marched off to a field, faced each other 100 yards apart, and blew each other away. Whoever ran out of ammo first was the loser. This was the respectable way to fight a war. Nevertheless, people soon realized that such combatants were easily beaten the unconventional way.

Now the world watches the certain defeat of the American military behemoth unfolding again before our very eyes. (Vietnam defeated the U.S. military in the same way.)

Watching the defeat of the world's most aggressive and violent nation, its largest consumer, its largest polluter, its fattest population, the hugest debtor nation, we know what's going on. The USA is going down, and not just in Iraq.

Indeed, defeat in Iraq would be much costlier than was America's retreat in Vietnam. Ho Chi Min never sent agents to hijack planes and slam them into American office buildings. He probably thought that, were he even to attempt such a thing, he'd lose the sympathy of the international community.

Perhaps the international community has changed; perhaps the Jihadists simply understand the international community better (see the email from Canada, above). What's more, the Jihadists are not coy about their goal: They seek nothing less than the destruction of the “infidel” civilization.

Zarqawi himself put it this way: "We do not wage our jihad in order to replace the Western tyrant with an Arab tyrant. We fight to make God's word supreme, and anyone who stands in the way of our struggle is our enemy, a target of our swords."

Those who say, “Yes, but we wouldn't be fighting Zarqawi in Iraq now if not for the U.S. invasion,” are misinformed.

Zarqawi, a Jordanian, was a commander of the anti-American forces in Afghanistan. It is believed that in 2002 he was wounded and fled to Iraq where Saddam Hussein provided him medical treatment and refuge. And then, Saddam gave him the freedom to operate, as well.

In October 2002, Zarqawi organized the assassination of an American diplomat, Lawrence Foley, in Amman. Intelligence analysts believe he also was behind the series of suicide bombings in Casablanca in May 2003, the bombing of Turkish synagogues in November 2003, the Madrid train bombings in March and numerous attacks against Sh'ia mosques and worshippers in Iraq throughout the year.

While under Saddam's protection, Zarqawi commuted between Baghdad and the terrorist training camp of the al Qaeda-linked Ansar al Islam. That camp, located in the north of the country, near the Iranian border, was destroyed by U.S. forces during the 2003 invasion. But many Ansar members escaped and went on to re-group as Ansar al Sunna – the organization that claimed credit for the recent suicide bombing against American and Iraqi troops in a mess tent near Mosul.

Were Zarqawi to prevail against the United States in Iraq, he would be seen by many people – not just in the Islamic world (again, see email above) -- as a brilliant general, a second Saladin, a slayer of the “behemoth.”

And America would be seen, perhaps correctly, as a former superpower, in possession of a military designed only to fight the last century's enemies.

People would recall what Zarqawi told Osama bin Laden in a letter intercepted by our Kurdish allies about a year ago. Americans, he wrote, “are an easy quarry, praise be to God. We ask God to enable us to kill and capture them, to sow panic among those behind them.”

Clifford D. May is the president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism and a Townhall.com member group.

Fallacy one: that we seek to be a superpower.
We do not seek that. But in the absence of any other power (i.e. a UN that actually intervened when it said it would and protected people's rights not dictators) we are the only "sheriff" on the block...

Fallacy two :That we lost militarily in Viet Nam. No, we lost because of left wing agitation that made full intervention impossible, and that pressured the government to withdraw.

Fallacy three: that we are losing.

One or two car bombs a day and 10 000 "insurgents" is not a major factor. And Iraqis may not be passive Buddhists like the Vietnamese.

And unlike Nixon, who won promising peace, and then was unable to stop the North Vietnamese invasion due to Watergate, we now have Bush in charge...and much of Red America is going around the liberal power bastions. Viet Nam was lost due to reporters like Peter ARnett and Walter Cronkite.

We now have blogs and Fox to get other sources of what is going on...

Are we a Superpower? My answer is no.
The reason - debt. Our government spends too much on non-government tasks leaving our country in massive debt.
Further borrowing will continue to erode the $$$. When lenders refuse to loan, we can inflate. Some solution.

This is what the democrats have worked for. To keep USA on the brink of bankruptcy so that we are impotent in world affairs.
G.W. Bush and Rumsfeld have scared the dems because of the swift defeat of the Taliban/Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and the swift defeat of Iraq.
The costs of Iraq transition is beyond all estimates and this worries both side. It worries the dems because they have no choice but to support the military. Thus, no additional permanent domestic spending. It worries the Pro-American activists because it further weakens our military transition, war on terror, and economy. Our economy is critical to winning.

If, however, Superpower is defined as the biggest of all, then we're still it.

Sadly, I cannot agree with your optimism.

For the record, let me post something I wrote days ago which in turn is a recital of much of what I have been saying since April when Fallujah became a fiasco.

This war is too important to lose, but lose it we will unless we can develope a new strategy not because of reality on the ground but because the media is winning the contest with the administration to win over public opinion against the war. Here is my post:

Analysis: Iraq's new war

I would only add that the new strategy(to win the war) to which you allude and which we are evolving is being fashioned not just in the pentagon, The White House, or in Foggy Bottom but in the august chambers of the New York Times editorial board. The fact is that no strategy can be implemented on purely military considerations. We are now in the absurd position of losing national support for a war which is critical to the international war on terrorism, which in turn is a war for the preservation of our democracy itself, because we have sustained fewer than 1500 fatalities.

The bitter truth is that reality on the ground is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The new reality is the ability of the media to lower the popular threshold of non toleration of casualty lists. So the idea that America can engage anywhere in a war of attrition cannot even come into the equation unless perhaps the war is fought on behalf of a left wing value. The preservation of America as a nation state is not such a value although the establishment of a world government just might be. The media will relentlessly manipulate the story until support for this war in Iraq is finally, irredeemably, eroded.

That is why the failure of this administration to stand up an effective and ruthless force to take the casualties for us is inexplicable. Certainly, the failure to make a creditable effort in this is blatant.

If the aftermath of these elections do not, as I suspect, create an aura of potential victory, the administration will be shown to be without alternatives to more of the same which is a policy, however justified by facts on the ground, that will not be accepted by the American people. The best that can be salvaged out of the ensuing mess will be a policy of setting one tribal group against another with the US turning a blind eye to ruthless, brutal repression of one sect by another. Thereafter, we can switch sides and reverse the process. We are at war. The war goal is to prevent America from being struck in the Homeland by weapons of mass destruction causing us to negotiate away the values of our democracy in the vain hope of preventing more casualties. The goal of creating a Wilsonian democracy in Iraq is only a strategy toward that war aim, not an end in itself.

There is one bright side to this situation. It is possible that Osama realizes that any premature strike on the Homeland will only serve to reinvigorate the American people and will at least temporarily eliminate the media's ability to shackle our national will to wage war. So long as Iraq continues as it is he might refrain from another attack, assuming he has the capability.

I would add to this previous post that, had we stood up a credible defense force, we could have supplied the tech and let the new Iraqi government supply the casualties. Alas, that was not done and there is no information that generates confidence that it is being done. We desperately need such a force which can sustain casualties by the thousands without impairing domestic support for the war. We need such a force to act as a mercenary occupation asset to lend credibility to threats against Iran and Syria which are now empty. We need such a force to play outside the Marquis of Queensbury rules which currently constrict us. We need such a force to act as counterweight to crazed Mullahs who would seize control of the country, such as has worked for decades in Turkey. Its absence is a very great pity and costs us dearly everyday.

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