American global leadership took a serious kicking last week. Politicians and pundits on both sides of the Atlantic queued up to condemn George W Bush’s and Tony Blair’s disastrous invasion of Iraq 20 years ago this month. At the same time, Congress moved to repeal the war powers act that enables a US president to launch military interventions abroad.
In Moscow, meanwhile, Xi Jinping, stringing along his Russian puppet, Vladimir Putin, proposed a new global order to replace the post-1945 US-led model. China’s de facto dictator is generously offering to “stand guard” over the planet. In Xi’s brave new world, subservience and surveillance replace shock and awe. Democracy takes a back seat.
