http://theconversation.com/a-new-world-is-dawning-and-the-us-will-no-longer-lead-it-98362

(The Conversation: A New World is Dawning and the U.S. will no longer Lead It)

The power shifts are increasingly visible. In the Middle East, the U.S. hoped for decades

to isolate Iran as a pariah and weaken the regime until it fell.

Today, that goal is unimaginable, though national security adviser John Bolton continues

to imagine it.

Iran is and will remain an increasingly assertive and influential power in the region,

defending and promoting its interests and competing with the Saudi regime.

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While the U.S. continues to have the world’s only global military capability, able to deploy

anywhere, it is no longer evident that this capability effectively sustains U.S. leadership.

Clear military victories are few – the Gulf War in 1991 being an exception. The endless

U.S. deployment in Afghanistan carries the whiff of Vietnam in its inability to resolve that

country’s civil war.

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North Korea behaves more and more like a regional power, winning a direct meeting with

the U.S. president while making only a general commitment to denuclearize. The prospect

of a unified Korea would bring into being another major regional power center in the Northern Pacific.

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A neo-conservative foreign policy, featuring unilateral American military intervention, as favored by John Bolton,

will only accelerate the global shift. Liberal internationalists like Hillary Clinton would fail as well, because

the rest of the world rejects the assumption that the U.S. is “indispensable” and “exceptional.” Barack Obama

appeared to recognize the changing reality, but continued to argue that only the U.S. could lead the international system.

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