Abstract

LETTER FROM GROUND ZERO

The article offers an assessment of the mission of the United States President George W. Bush administration as of September 2004. The President's policies have failed to check the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The entire "axis of evil," consisting, according to the President, of Iraq, Iran and North Korea, continues to defy his Administration in one way or another. Bush's America plainly has global imperial ambition, but does it have the corresponding accomplishment? Perhaps the question can be better addressed by dividing it into two parts: first, whether the United States has the wherewithal to play an imperial role, and, second, whether the world is ready to receive American imperial direction. Is there something in the very fabric of today's world that tends to resist or elude or otherwise negate the operation of military force and, with it, imperial subjugation? In the face of nuclear stalemate at the apex of the global system and universal rebellion at the base, can any imperial project now succeed?