Jonathan Schell, "American Tragedy" (The Nation, posted 3/20/03):
When the Soviet Union collapsed and the cold war ended, the United States was left
in a position of global privilege, prestige and might that had no parallel in history. The moment seemed a golden one for the American form of government, liberal democracy. . . . A basically consensual rather than a coerced world seemed a real possibility.
Who could have guessed that barely a decade later the United States, forsaking the very legal, democratic traditions that were its most admired characteristics, would be going to war to impose its will by force upon an alarmed, angry, frightened world united against it? . . .
The international order on which the common welfare, including its ecological and economic welfare, depends has sustained severe damage. The fight for "freedom" abroad is crippling freedom at home. The war to stop proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has provoked that very proliferation in North Korea and Iran. More ground has already been lost in the field of proliferation than can be gained even by the most delirious victory in Baghdad. Former friends of America have been turned into rivals or foes. The United States may be about to win Iraq. It has already lost the world.
