Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek:
“But it’s a different world out there. If Iraq cast a shadow on U.S. political and military credibility, this financial crisis has eroded America’s economic and financial power. In the short run, there has been a flight to safety—toward dollars and T-bills—but in the long run, countries are likely to seek greater independence from an unstable superpower. The United States will now have to work to attract capital to its shores, and manage its fiscal house better. We will have to persuade countries to join in our foreign endeavors. We will have to make strategic choices. We cannot deploy missile interceptors along Russia’s borders, draw Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, and still expect Russian cooperation on Iran’s nuclear program. We cannot noisily denounce Chinese and Arab foreign investments in America one day and then hope that they will keep buying $4 billion worth of T-bills another day. We cannot keep preaching to the world about democracy and capitalism while our own house is so wildly out of order.”
PREACH!
