[usa] losing the plot at international level

Was there ever such a demonstration of the waning leverage of the US as a world arbitrator? A third of my friends are American and I have no wish to offend them but they’d better face up to the fact that their politicos have lost the plot in various theatres of action, just as Britain once had to face up to the loss of its own empire. China is the new measuring stick: Kim Jong-Il has apologised and reassured China that he has no plans to conduct further nuclear tests … Kim was quoted as telling a senior Chinese envoy on Thursday that he was prepared to return to the negotiating table and compromise with the United States. Is that leverage or is that leverage? No one is smugly smiling about it – it’s simply the new reality.