Two, despite the outpouring of goodwill for him across the world, Obama will not find it easy to make nice to the world. There is no doubt that many of President George

W. Bush’s policies made America unpopular around the world. That does not necessarily mean that the world’s resentments against America started with Bush and will end with his departure from the White House. Anti-Americanism has been an enduring world wide phenomenon since the ’60s.

Just recall the so-called “golden age” of Bill Clinton. It was one of America’s European allies, France, that referred to Clinton’s America as a “hyperpower” during the ’90s. If Bush’s Iraq intervention was attacked as illegitimate, so was Clinton’s war in Kosovo by Russia, China and many others. Neither of them had the mandate of the United Nations Security Council.

If Bush has been criticised for short-circuiting the UN, many in the third world attacked Clinton for using the UN Security Council to undermine the concept of national sovereignty in the name of “humanitarian intervention”. Whether America rejects the UN or embraces it, there will be objections.

Put simply, power breeds resentment. So long as it remains the sole superpower, America’s actions, irrespective of intent, will always generate suspicion.

Three, the limits on the use of American power are real and Obama will pay dearly if he ignores this like Bush. After the Cold War the US establishment believed it had the freedom to pursue any external goal it chose. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven otherwise. Yet there is nothing to suggest that the liberal internationalists have grasped this lesson.

... contd.