USA and the World: At the crossroads or in the crosshairs?

Come Carpentier de Gourdon
08 Oct 2009

History is being written every day but there is little doubt that the years from 2008 to 2010 will be remembered in the future as the period during which the global system transitioned from almost unchallenged unipolar western dominance to a much more complex and uncharted chaotic state.

The after-effects of the financial meltdown in the USA brought about the rapid decline of the NATO-centered western security structure, already challenged by the tragic wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while Israel, a pillar of the global US-led alliance, was put on the strategic defensive by its botched attack on Lebanon and on the moral defensive by its brutal assault on Gaza, which exposed the Jewish state to the charges of war crimes and even crimes against humanity, earlier levied against its American mentor in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Conversely, while the “metaphoricalâ€