America just wants to be loved and henceforth we will measure the success of our foreign policy according to the Gallup global polls that so fascinate our media, foreign policy experts, and Department of State. It’s empirical! And also – if it’s not too much to ask – America wants not to have too much to do with anyone else, except on a strictly commercial and, okay, okay, sometimes charitable, do-gooding basis. Got that part? We’ve got our own problems and our own issues, if you haven’t noticed. We’ve realized multilateralism is good for that, though not necessarily the way you thought: we plan, by the way, to be multilateralists just like you. We’ll even pay over our .7% GDP for development, and to the corruptniks, rent-seeking kleptocrats at the UN, no less, because frankly it’s easier to send the check to one address than try and keep all those Africans alive on retrovirals that need constant attention, constant organization, constant management, constant unilateral care – but then will you just fuck off and leave us alone to figure out our new social-democratic tax system? You asked all those years why the United States couldn’t be more like Sweden. Or maybe it was Holland or Finland or Denmark or Luxembourg or Andorra. Well, we can, we can, we can be a well-run little social democratic welfare state of modest multilateral mien, and a real joiner at the UN, too, inchallah, a member of the Human Rights Council, proud multilateral sponsor of Durban III, IV, and V, and maybe even see an American as President of the General Assembly someday, a good multilateral day, if we pay enough attention to us and stop paying so much attention to you.
Be careful what you wish for.
No comments:
Post a Comment