Did 2011 signal the end of the United States as a "Hyperpower" in the world? Could be.

Courtesy of Juan Cole:

The United States is no longer the hyperpower. It can no longer necessarily act unilaterally by launching a major war of aggression at will. It lacks the resources. And, it has significant challengers in some theaters. The Obama administration was only able to act in Libya because Russia and China had allowed a strong UNSC resolution in favor of intervention to be passed. Had either exercised a veto, the Libya War would have been forestalled. And, even with a UNSC resolution authorizing the use of force, Washington felt the need to lead from behind and let France, Britain and Qatar stay in the forefront, because it feared bad PR if it were perceived to be yet again unilaterally attacking a Muslim country. 

A corollary is that each region of the world is now more independent of the US than it had been. Brazil defied the US on Libya and Latin America is defying the US on relations with Palestine. 

The greatest trend to greater independence of the US can be seen in the Middle East and North Africa. Some regimes that were almost sycophants toward Western capitals have been swept away. Indigenous and nativist political movements, especially those based in political Islam, are doing well. Religious parties came to power in Tunisia and Morocco, forming governments and selecting the prime minister. A similar development will likely occur in Egypt, Libya and Yemen in 2012. All of these governments had been dominated by billionaire politicians and increasingly Neoliberal economic policies. The new cabinets dominated by political Islam are economic populists, but likely will not challenge the US significantly. Neither can they be depended upon, however, to do as they’re told, in the way that Mubarak could have been. 

It is too early to say whether the assertion of people power, in part via the internet, in the Arab world marks a structural, long-term change in the way business is done. What can be said is that the Middle East is emerging as more independent than it had been since the 1970s.

Personally I do not see this as a bad thing, and neither should any Americans tired of seeing our wealth and resources, not to mention the lives of our young men and woman, wasted in attempts to control the politics and people of countries around the world.

And I have little doubt that this fear surrounding our loss of influence in these Middle Eastern countries is one of the driving forces behind the increase in Islamophobia among the Republican party. The idea that these countries will snip their puppet strings, and finally exert free will over their own futures, frightens the Republicans, and their corporate masters who fear losing access to all of that delicious oil.

The irony of all of this is that supposedly this is what the Bush administration had hoped to inspire in the Middle east by taking out Saddam Hussein as Iraq's dictator, democracy flourishing in the Middle East. Yet now that their wishes seem to be coming true, the GOP seem ot be panic stricken about what their invasive policies have helped to create.

Gotta love Karma, don't you?