American Exceptionalism and Our Place in the World

Obama-Shrinks-2After almost 2 terms under the failed “Smart Power!” Foreign Policy of Petulant President Pantywaist, Barack Hussein Obama, our allies around the world are asking themselves, “Will America still have our back in the future? Are they still a Super Power?”

Telegraph.co.uk posted the following interesting story, yesterday…

After six decades serving as the global policeman, the United States is now signalling its retreat from the world. With the Middle East engulfed by the flames of sectarian conflict, Europe’s borders menaced by the threat of war and China starting to flex its muscles in Asia-Pacific, it is clear the world has entered a new period of volatility.
That uncertainty begs tough questions for Britain: how should we respond to this new American pragmatism? And as our traditional ally turns inward, what should that mean for British foreign policy?

Ian Bremmer, the American foreign policy guru who coined the phrase “G-Zero” to describe this new and unstable world, is the author of ‘Superpower’, a best-selling new book that explores America’s options as a superpower in the 21st century.
 
Here he talks exclusively to Peter Foster about the strategic choices now facing America…

…PF: As we enter this period of post-Cold War instability, is the current US disengagement good or bad for what comes next?

IB: “It’s not good, but let’s be clear- engagement cannot be half-assed. Engaging doesn’t mean telling people you’re going to engage and then screwing them over. It means really engaging. It doesn’t mean setting a red line, and then backing off. And if you asked me if I believe it is credible right now to take big bets and tell the Europeans ‘we’re really there for you’, and the Japanese, ‘we’re really there for you’, and the Gulf States ‘we’re really there for you’, then the answer is ‘no’.

Are we going to get presidents that are going to consistently get behind that and really support an American-led world order? It’s possible, but I doubt it.”

PF: So is playing the ‘indispensable’ Superpower role essentially beyond the capacity of America now? Fiscally, militarily? 

IB: “No, there are absolutely things we could be doing that would be ‘indispensable’. America has money, interest rates are low, and if we want to print money, we can. If we want to support allies, we can. But indispensable doesn’t just mean, ‘oh we’re going to do drone strikes against Isis’. It means actually going to develop the kind of support that would, over the long-term, build economic opportunities for all these disenfranchised people across the Middle East.

“We’re the only country in the world that could put the resources on the ground that could actually fix the Middle East. We’re the only country in the world that can create global architecture, global alliances. We’re the ones that created Nato. Even if our allies like the Brits say ‘we don’t want to spend as much’, we still have to stick with it – because the absence of that is chaos. That’s what the ‘indispensables’ would argue.”

PF: But right now the American public won’t buy into that? 

IB: “I don’t think so. ‘Indispensable’ America is now an increasingly extreme sell, domestically, for any American president.

“Americans have gotten disillusioned with the inauthenticity of their own leaders, and the politics and politicians in Washington. After living through the 2008 financial crisis, Bush vs Gore, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib – all of this stuff – and now we’re facing a $5 billion dollar election campaign where the most recognisable names are another Bush and another Clinton – you can’t ignore the disillusion.”

Like the present occupant of the Oval Office, Ian Bremmer evidently  believes that America is presently, and is inevitably destined to be “just another country”.

On March 7, 1978, Ronald Wilson Reagan, at the 5th Annual CPAC Conference , spoke the following prophetic words:

America will remain great and act responsibly so long as it exercises power — wisely, and not in the bullying sense — but exercises it, nonetheless.

Leadership is a great burden. We grow weary of it at times. And the Carter administration, despite its own cheerful propaganda about accomplishments, reflects that weariness.

But if we are not to shoulder the burdens of leadership in the free world, then who will?

The alternatives are neither pleasant nor acceptable. Great nations which fail to meet their responsibilities are consigned to the dust bin of history. We grew from that small, weak republic which had as its assets spirit, optimism, faith in God and an unshakeable belief that free men and women could govern themselves wisely. We became the leader of the free world, an example for all those who cherish freedom.

If we are to continue to be that example — if we are to preserve our own freedom — we must understand those who would dominate us and deal with them with determination.

We must shoulder our burden with our eyes fixed on the future, but recognizing the realities of today, not counting on mere hope or wishes. We must be willing to carry out our responsibility as the custodian of individual freedom. Then we will achieve our destiny to be as a shining city on a hill for all mankind to see.

You see, Mr. Bremmer, where the exceptionalism of America lies…is not in the Halls of Power…but in the courage and spirit of the average American. A courage and spirit, which our history proves, has driven American Citizens to build a nation, which is indeed exceptional among all others.

Thr secret of this country’s exceptionalism is the “Average Joe”, the 9 to 5′er, working himself into the grave to try to provide for his family.

It was this same “Average Joe”, who fired the shot heard around the world and began the War for American Independence, who stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day in World War II, who waded through rice paddies in Vietnam, and who swallowed sand in Desert Storm and Desert Shield. The same “Average Joe” who, as a New York City Policeman or Fireman, ran up the stairs of the World Trade Center on 9/11/01, instead of running down them. The same “Average Joe”, who simply wants things to be easier in this life for his children and grandchildren, than he had it.

It is this same “Average Joe”, who takes family and friends in, when they are in the midst of a life-altering tragedy. The same “Average Joe”, who volunteers on a soup line or at a Senior Citizens Home, or, who begins a successful business in his basement.

Liberal Bureaucrats, like Secretary of State John Kerry and his boss, are professional political prevaricators. Men and women, whose ethics and morality change with the direction of the wind, and whose egos override their judgment…every time.

America is a Constitutional Republic. We are not ruled by a faceless all-powerful government. America’s politicians, including President Barack Hussein Obama, are OUR SERVANTS….not the other way around.

And, as their Boss, we expect them to possess a more complete knowledge of the history of the most exceptional nation on the face of God’s green Earth. We expect them to honor and respect the lives given and the sacrifices made by courageous Americans, who paved the way for you and the rest of this selfish generation, who are so desperately attempting to rewrite American History in order for it to be in accordance with the tenets of their Liberal Ideology.

America’s place in the world is not a thing so fragile that it can be unalterably changed by a lightweight like Barack Hussein Obama.

As author Dinesh D’ Souza wrote…

What does the doctrine of American exceptionalism empower the United States to do? Nothing more than to act better than traditional empires – committed to looting and conquest – have done. So that’s American exceptionalism: an exceptionalism based on noble ideas, ideas that it holds itself to even when it falls short of them.

In conclusion, it is not a single politician that decides America’s place in the world.

It is the fact of American Exceptionalism.

Until He Comes,

KJ