American Election is Hope for European Renaissance

For those with a love of the grand narrative, this piece from Le Figaro is a treat.

It posits how this moment in American history will look to a historian of the future.

A historian looking back from the future will perhaps say that, after 2004, the United States had attained the peak of its socio-political expansion and that the newly re-elected George Bush ought at that point to have adopted, little by little, the program of his rival, John Kerry.

But a more precise observer would be able to point out that the soviet-style putsch that unfolded doubly in Washington – a first time, in 2007, with the elimination of Donald Rumsfeld from the Department of Defense, and a second time, in 2007, with the stamp given by the American intelligence community to the Iranian nuclear program – definitively made clear the American need for a global strategic withdrawal toward a more isolationist policy.

This American moment is presented in the context of a rising China and a resurgent Russia, and mulls the post-election American approach to its regional interests, such as in the Middle East, which may resemble a policy of “benevolent negligence” reminiscent of the retreating British empire.

Perhaps the most compelling piece of the article, though is the deprecating view of Europe (increasingly common within Europe itself):

there is a lot to hope for an otherwise impotent Europe to find the key to its renaissance in the American election.

To find out why, go to the Le Figaro piece here in translation on WATCHING AMERICA.com