Timothy Garton Ash skriver i The Guardian om Bush-regeringens nemesis:
The irony of the Bush years is that a man who came into office committedto both celebrating and reinforcing sovereign, unbridled national power has presided over the weakening of that power in all three dimensions: military, economic and soft. “I am not convinced we are winning it in Afghanistan,” Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a congressional committee earlier this month. Many on the ground say that’s an understatement. The massive, culpable distraction of Iraq, Bush’s war of choice, leaves the US – and with it the rest of the west – on the verge of losing the war of necessity. Here, resurgent in Afghanistan and Pakistan, are the jihadist enemies who attacked the US on September 11 2001. By misusing military power, Bush has weakened it.
Economically, the Bush presidency ends with a financial meltdown on a scale not seen for 70 years. The proud conservative deregulators (John McCain long among them) now oversee a partial nationalisation of the American economy that would make even a French socialist blush. A government bailout that will total close to a trillion dollars, plus the cumulative cost of the Iraq war, will push the national debt to more than $11 trillion. The flagships of Wall Street either go bust or have to be salvaged, with the help of government or foreign money. Most ordinary Americans feel poorer and less secure.
Som Ash også bemærker, er det ikke kun den rå militære og økonomiske magt, men i allerhøjeste grad også landets moralske styrke og anseelse, der har lidt skade. George Bush kritiserer Putin for at invadere en uafhængig stat (Georgien), og hele verden ler. Amerikanerne taler menneskerettigheder i Kina og Rusland, og folk trækker på skuldrene og tænker på Abu Ghraib og Guantanamo.
Selv en medskyldig og republikaner som Colin Powell mener i dag, at en kommende præsidents vigtigste opgave må være at genoprette USAs anseelse ude i verden. Latinamerika er ved at falde fra, og den eneste rigtigt venligtsindede regering på de kanter er Colombia, der ledes af en notorisk krigsforbryder og bandit. Imperiet består måske stadig, men det har fået alvorlige ridser i lakken.
I stedet står USA nu, efter otte års svækkelse, overfor et valg mellem to kandidater, der repræsenterer mere eller mindre den samme politik, men med vidt forskellige kulturelle og symbolske betydninger. Det er til dels ud fra en formodning om, at det nok ikke kan blive meget værre, at vi i den anledning gerne vil gøre Garton Ashs håb til vores:
“No one has done more to serve the cause of anti-Americanism than GW Bush. It is we who like and admire the US who should, by rights, be burning effigies. But now, at last, we live in hope of a better America.“