Every country throughout history has always done what it felt was necessary to further its interests. This is no surprise and no one really expects anyone to do otherwise. Different forces on the world scene may feel that their interests are more important than others, or there may be conflict when different nations feel it is necessary to do things for their security that threatens another. But the motivation and the pattern is as old as history.

But nations are not individual actors, they act in concert, form shifting alliances, develop ties, go through periods of different behavior, and often (if they are wise) refrain from short term gains when they perceive there are long term benefits to be had by exercising diplomacy, compromise, even concession. When a nation is very powerful, as we are, people expect it to use its force to keep itself prosperous and safe. In fact, they would quickly lose respect for us if we didn't. But if we are flexible, ready to negotiate, kind to our allies and forgiving of our enemies, we are often able to persuade and influence others without the threat of violence. People will want to be our friends because they can trust us not to turn on them like a mad dog at the slightest provocation.

They will feel safe because they will know we are magnanimous, and realists. In this way we build allies and friends and coalitions which make us even stronger. This has been American history in the twentieth century: you work with us, we help you out. Work against us, and you suffer, not just because we can punish you, but because we will refuse to be your friend.

But the fact remains, you can't please everyone, and with the world's resouces and ambitions unevenly distributed, conflict is inevitable. And even our friends will bitterly recall the price they had to pay to secure our friendship while they quickly forget whatever concessions we may have made in order to earn it. It's just human nature.

Today we have a government which is determined to do whatever it takes to achieve its goals. It will not tolerate disagreement and views any obstruction as a hostile act, it says "if you are not with us you are against us", conveniently forgetting our enemies say the say thing: "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." We have become impatient and erratic, and our friends, even those who agree with us and have tied their fortunes to us, are afraid. The greatest power on earth is determined to get its way, and even those who wish us success are wondering what it is we'll want tomorrow.

The one tenet of international law and custom we have always followed (or at least, tried to give the impression we followed) is that we do not pre-emptively attack another country unless they are a direct and imminent threat to us or to our allies, and only after all other means are exhausted. Even Vietnam could always be cast as a defense against Communist encirclement and even those who disagreed with us could follow our reasoning. The invasion of Afghanistan was pretty mch accepted for similar reasons. Even the rationale for Iraq was viewed by our friends as a colossal blunder, not a malicious act. But once the threat to us was shown to be non-existent, any possible reason for us being there evaporated and it came to be perceived as a great power attempting to rebuild the world in its image and ready to manufacture any excuse in order to do so. The international order condemns attacking other countries except in self-defense, or when justified by some sort of collective agreement. No country has the right to attack another just because they are evil.

Today, the world views us with envy, suspicion, a bit of dread. Our friends do too, not just because of what we've done, but because they really don't know what we'll do next. Americans may have different opinions, of course, we feel we have a grasp of what is going on here, but other countries do not see us as the rightful savior of the world. They view us as a big giant that they thought was on their side, and now they just don't know. Iraq is viewed as the first time the United States attacked another country on completely bogus pretexts and did so in order to engineer a puppet state designed to carry out its geopolitical designs. If we had pulled it off, we probably would have gotten away with it, our allies would certainly benefit from the new order. But right now we're bogged down and haven't got the sense to either win or withdraw, and no one knows what we'll do next. The only hope the world, both friends and rivals, has is that they can still see the debate going on in this country. Our policy is not forever cast in stone and may be yet modified by constitutional, democratic means. We are not a Nazi Germany or a Soviet Empire yet.