"There are three fundamental truths about US foreign policy that it is high time people in the Middle East grasp more fully.
First, the US is a world hegemon. Even with its credibility sinking and other powers rising, like China, the US comprises about one-fourth of the entire world’s economy by itself, controls most of the UN as well as the IMF and World Bank, and has vast influence over states everywhere. This factor has two effects that matter here. One is that US will not stop acting like a hegemon until it isn’t one anymore, which is still a long way off, and no political hegemon in history has ever acted altruistically. Especially, no hegemon has ever simply backed out of the affairs of a long-standing client and tossed its own hard interests to the wind in the name of human freedom. Human rights and democracy are optional to hegemons: they matter only where they impact the hegemon’s realist interests. And the driving interests of any hegemon are wealth and security: to abuse the phrasing of a famous Jewish philosopher, “the rest is commentary”. To expect a hegemon to behave any other way is futile fantasy."
No comments:
Post a Comment