George W Kerry?

It's a riveting passion play. The campaigns of the two men who want to be President are the most divisive ever. In political advertising on ...

It8217;s a riveting passion play. The campaigns of the two men who want to be President are the most divisive ever. In political advertising on TV, they8217;ve unleashed animal images. In the age of global anxiety, they prey on primitive fears. Elections were never this expensive.

But as next week draws closer, it is becoming fashionable in some quarters of the world commentariat to disown the ardour. Because, they ask us to believe, all the swordsplay won8217;t matter in the end. Because the President of the world8217;s sole superpower is a prisoner of uncontrollable global forces as much as the next guy who is head of state. The US President is also constrained by the American presidency.

Moises Naim, editor of the influential Foreign Policy, captured this argument in a widely-quoted column 8216;8216;Meet George W Kerry8217;8217;. Be careful what you wish for, he advised a few months ago, because: 8216;8216;if re-elected, Bush will have difficulty sustaining the foreign policies of his first term, whereas a first-term Kerry presidency is bound to emulate some of Bush8217;s more aggressive positions.8217;8217;

Naim argued that in a second term, Bush would discover that large-scale preemptive wars of choice are no more an option, having over-stretched the US military in Iraq, failed to find WMDs, alienated allies, messed up the post-war occupation. The bar for 8216;8216;significant US military action abroad8217;8217; is now much higher. Bush would also try harder with Europe and the UN in the hope of reducing pressure on US forces in Iraq.

And President Kerry would learn that 8216;8216;some of his multilateral instincts are difficult to transform into sustainable policies8217;8217;. If the UN does not come to US aid, a Kerry administration would have to unilaterally expand direct US involvement in Iraq. There will be intractable trade disputes with Europe. Kerry may be unable to deliver on his promise of 8216;8216;bold, progressive internationalism8217;8217;.

In a variation of this argument in the Los Angeles Times, Max Boot, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote of the 8216;8216;hidden strength8217;8217; of the American system: 8216;8216;it rarely presents voters with a very stark choice8217;8217;. The odds are, he said, neither Bush nor Kerry will get what he wants out of a Congress that remains deeply divided.

But none of those warnings are expected to dim the hopes and fears, or the sheer pre-November 2 queasiness. In the Guardian, Timothy Garton Ash knew he was fighting a losing battle when he begged the world to spare a glance for the other drama of democracy unfolding in Brussels.

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The columnist8217;s lament was that while no one is looking, a never-before politics is being tried out. So what if it does not feature the most powerful man in the world, and America8217;s engaging mix of big budgets, war, sex, God and lies. In Europe8217;s new Parliament, former dissidents, writers, scholars, unionists, economists and activists mix with politicians from 25 countries. Here, you could find a 8216;8216;politics of peaceful negotiation, consensus and compromise, not of high noon, and winner-takes-all8217;8217;. Anyone watching it?

Among the liberals

When Larry Diamond wrote in Foreign Affairs on his experience of advising the Coalition Provisional Authority on the transition in Iraq, he was bound to raise the hackles of fellow liberals. Diamond is a leading theorist of democratisation. He has consistently advocated human rights on the US foreign policy agenda. This month, Professor of Political Science at Tufts University Tony Smith joined issue with Diamond on his view that the Iraq war was only a 8216;8216;strategic mistake8217;8217;. The combative exchange offers a glimpse into the debate on Iraq, among the liberals.

According to Smith, Diamond is wrong to criticise only the means used to prosecute the war and not the project itself. For him, the reason for US failure lies in the 8216;8216;misplaced ambitions8217;8217; behind an 8216;8216;ill-fated imperialist aggression8217;8217;. He points out that Iraq lacks the preconditions for successful democratisation. It has no independent middle class; successive regimes8217; dependence on oil has encouraged extreme centralisation of power; there is no tradition of limited government; ethnic solidarities undermine a national identity; Iraqi democrats lack a Mandela-like leader. Smith accuses Diamond of making a 8216;8216;Faustian bargain8217;8217; like many liberals who 8216;8216;support US imperialism for the sake of fulfilling their self-appointed democratising mission8217;8217;.

In his write-back, Diamond reiterated his opposition to the war but rejected its description as an 8216;8216;imperialist aggression8217;8217; or 8216;8216;imperial mission8217;8217;. Iraq, he said, was a pre-emptive war driven mainly by security concerns, 8216;8216;however misjudged8217;8217;.

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Diamond believes the war has opened the possibility for 8216;8216;historic political progress8217;8217; in Iraq. He insists there can be no standard pre-conditions for democracy 8216;8216;other than a commitment by political elites to implement it and one hopes, broad popular support as well8217;8217;.

This argument will go on, whatever happens on November 2.