NYT Columnist Roger Cohen wrote Europe Votes Democrat, but Asia Tends Republican and Michael J. Green, who served on the National Security Council staff from 2001 to 2005, claims that the Iraq war has been good for US interests in South East Asia. He writes in The Washington Quarterly:

If anything, most major powers in Asia have used the war on terrorism and the conflict in Iraq to align more closely with the United States in order to balance rivals within the region or to advance their global standing.

Greg Sheridan agrees with this analysis and adds in The Australian (HT: Joe Noory):

Australian commentators almost universally mimic the European critique or more often the liberal American critique of the Bush administration and all its works. What is clear is that they have almost no sense of the Asian context at all.

Other conservatives, however, worry about the US standing in in East Asia: Michael Austin from the American Enterprise Institute opines that appeasement politics weaken US credibility in Asia: "Some of America's most important bilateral alliances are at risk of coming unmoored."

This is my favorite quote of the year so far: "Would we have allowed Nazi Germany to host the Olympics?"

This awesome statement was found on a protest sign in San Francisco. German Joys and Andrew Sullivan have a picture.

This statement is fascinating on so many levels. Not just because the author has not heard about the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. And not just because of his/her comparison between Nazi Germany and China. I find the statement revealing because the author apparently thinks that it is the United States as Master of the Universe that gets to decide who is allowed to host the Olympics.

Apparently it is not just US presidents and senators (and plenty of slightly megalomaniac "experts" without any military experience) who boldly declare stuff like "we must not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon" or similar phrases along the lines of "We must not allow evil doers doing evil stuff." Apparently even the usually pretty left-leaning protestors in San Francisco consider the United States to be a hyperpower.

Actually, right now President Bush is not making any bold statements regarding China. All of a sudden, he prefers quiet diplomacy. What a change from this second inauguration speech three years ago.

Over at Atlantic Community, we have recommended a few press commentaries regarding China and the Olympics:

• Chinese Outcry Against the Western Media: "The Chinese believe that Tibet cannot be the real reason for Western criticism of China and call for boycotts."
• The Positive Side of Chinese Nationalism: "The Olympics have inspired Chinese nationalism which will lead to increased civil engagement and awareness of the responsibilities and rights of citizenship."
• Will the Chinese Change International Institutions?: "In the past, the World Bank, like the IMF, was traditionally dominated by American, Europeans, and their neoliberal agenda. However as American financial pillars are now underpinned by Chinese money, it has become impossible to ignore Chinese interests."

UPDATE: Megalomania and arrogance is of course not limited to the US, but also widespread in Europe, where declarations about "not allowing" Iran, China and others to do something are even more ridiculous considering our real political influence and military power. I just wanted to clarify that this post is not meant to bash the United States, but to criticize stupid and arrogant people, who overestimate their country's power. These people are a danger to their country.

Javier Solana, the EU's High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy and a Spanish Fulbright Alumnus, said according to AFP that he backed the new Pakistani government's moves to hold talks with Taliban militants, but ruled out any negotiations with Al-Qaeda.

This puts Europe at odds with the United States, not just with the Bush administration, but also with all remaining presidential candidates. Even Barack Obama, who is willing to meet with Iran's President Ahmadinejad, seems to be against negotiations with Taliban. He wrote in Foreign Affairs last summer:

Our strategy must also include sustained diplomacy to isolate the Taliban and more effective development programs that target aid to areas where the Taliban are making inroads.

I agree with Niklas Keller, who argued in the Atlantic Community that "negotiations with the Taliban may be the West's most effective tool to successfully 'divide and conquer' the Afghani insurgency."

China has now overtaken the United States as the greatest perceived threat to global stability in the eyes of Europeans, according to the opinion poll commissioned by the Financial Times. The poll, carried out by the Harris agency between March 27 and April 8 and published on Tuesday, found that 35 percent of respondents in the five largest EU states see China as a bigger threat to world stability than any other state.

Moreover, the United States is also doing better in popularity contests: Atlantic Community noted: "For the first time since 2005, the number of people abroad that view the US as a positive force has increased slightly, to 35 percent."

Related posts in the Atlantic Review:

• Europe is a Threat to the United States

• Transatlantic Foreign Policy Attitudes and Threat Perceptions

The United States has admitted less than 5,000 Iraqi refugees between April 2003 through the end of March while Sweden has accepted 34,000 since 2003 according to Congressman Alcee Hastings, chairman of the Helsinki Commission, an independent US government agency led by members of Congress.

The International Herald Tribune writes that the commission held a hearing with Anders Lago, the mayor of Sodertalje, Sweden. He said that his small city of about 80,000 was now home to nearly 6,000 Iraqis. "More refugees than the United States and Canada together."

The IHT also points out that "the Bush administration said Thursday it remained optimistic it would meet its goal of admitting 12,000 Iraqi refugees by the end of September."

Related articles in the Atlantic Community by Jan Bittner: Iraqi Refugees: The West Overlooks a Major Crisis and Iraqi Refugees: Open Western Doors to the Most Vulnerable, referring to the Iraqi Christians in particular.

The so-called pragmatists in the Republican party are concerned that Senator McCain "is susceptible to influence from the neoconservatives," write Elizabeth Bumiller and Larry Rother write in the New York Times (HT: Alex).

John McCain has long made his decades of experience in foreign policy and national security the centerpiece of his political identity, but he might not be "as fully formed on foreign policy as his campaign advisers say he is:"

While he speaks authoritatively, he operates too much off the cuff and has not done the deeper homework required of a presidential candidate.

In a trip to the Middle East last month, Mr. McCain made an embarrassing mistake when he said several times that he was concerned that Iran was training Al Qaeda in Iraq. (The United States believes that Iran, a Shiite country, has been training Shiite extremists in Iraq, but not Al Qaeda, a Sunni insurgent group.) He repeated the mistake on Tuesday at hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Related post on Atlantic Community: Why We Should Fear a McCain Presidency

And on Dialog International: John McCain a Danger for Europe

Many Europeans are ambivalent about America: prone to sounding off about Yankee imperialism but nevertheless infatuated with American culture. Many of them were furious with the Bush administration precisely because of its refusal to live up to the American ideals that had served the country so well during the second world war. Given a little wooing, they might be willing to fall back in love with America.

Was Europe ever truly "in love with America"? Is "just a little wooing" enough? I doubt it.

Related: Le Figaro says that Europe has to get prepared for rising US isolationism and fill the void (See Top Press Commentary in the Atlantic Community.) Europe won't do that either, I believe.

At my day job at Atlantic Community, we have published quite a few interesting articles on US-Polish issues. Polish perspectives are under-reported in the German and American mass media, but they are important because Poland is one of Europe's bigger countries, is considered very Pro-American and was seen as the primary "New Europe" country, a term that is less frequently used these days, but is still controversial.

Marek Swierczynski, a journalist at the Polish TV channel TVP, reflects on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war:

Poland's decision to join the "coalition of the willing" has left the military stretched beyond capacity, the society in serious mistrust of their leaders and perception of a joint effort for a good cause seriously damaged. It took 25 lives 5 years and 3 governments to rethink and withdraw.

Ryan R. Miller of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Washington, DC. writes about Poland's Iran Option:

Possible Polish-Iranian energy cooperation puts U.S. policy makers between a rock and a hard place, as America finds itself committed both to isolating the Islamic Republic and supporting Polish efforts to outflank Russia's Gazprom.

Wess Mitchell, who is the Director of Research at CEPA, outlines recent developments between the United States and Poland regarding the US missile defense program. He concludes that relations between Poland and Russia are likely to deteriorate and Tusk may have compromised himself by acting so decisively this early in his term: Missile Defense: Poland Has Less Room to Maneuver.

Anna Nadgrodkiewicz sums up contentious issues in Polish-American relations: Polish troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the necessity of easing visa requirements, and the proposed missile defense shield. See her article Managing Image and Expectations.

Marek Swierczynski  sees NATO at a Crossroad in a second article:

Just before the NATO summit in Bucharest, the differences on what and how the Alliance should do in the future seem all but rising on both sides of the Atlantic. The Warsaw conference on NATO's Transformation made fundamental divides clearly visible. (...) The new NATO members seem to live in a Neverland. Professor Kuzniar assessed that the Alliance is the only force of global reach and capabilities. Wrong. There is no such thing as NATO global capability. There is the US global capability and to be more precise it is one of the US Navy.

The Boston Globe

World War I veterans still have no national memorial. There has been no Hollywood blockbuster in recent years to bring their story to life. But they still have Frank Buckles. More than 90 years after he fudged his age to join the Army, Corporal Frank Woodruff Buckles, the last surviving American veteran of World War I, came to the Pentagon yesterday to represent the more than two million "doughboys" who braved the trench warfare and gas attacks of the "The Great War." (...)
Now, Buckles is the last flesh-and-blood reminder of the 116,000 Americans who gave their lives to save Europe at the start of the 20th century.

Wikipedia tries to document the surviving veterans from all World War I combatant nations.

The surviving veterans remind us that the era of wars between the world's major powers is not ancient history. I wonder what these veterans think when they hear how today's politicians talk about the risks of terrorism. Do they think that this is just scare-mongering to win votes and that we shall consider ourselves to be lucky to live in such peaceful times? That Al Qaeda is just a nuissance compared to the Wehrmacht or the Red Army?

The human and financial costs of WWI were huge. America's current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are also expensive: $3.5 billion per week, according to William Hartung. German Joys quotes some comparisons from his article: The "whole international community spends less than $400 million per year on the International Atomic Energy Agency, the primary institution for monitoring and preventing the spread of nuclear weapons; that's less than one day's worth of war costs." And the US government's yearly budget for combating global warming is as big as two weeks of expenses in Iraq and Afghanistan.

More efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation and combating global warming are at least as important as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Julianne Smith and Alexander Lennon of the Center for Strategic and International Studies contend that climate change will further disrupt the stability of already volatile regions, which has the potential of producing multitudes of discontented individuals prone to radicalization...

Chancellor Merkel attacked suggestions that Germany had taken the easy option in Afghanistan: "We're not just digging wells and building houses; we also have a military mission."  Hugh Williamson reports in the Financial Times:

In her most outspoken comments on Afghanistan since Germany came under pressure this month to send more troops, the German chancellor said she had "absolutely no time" for proposals to redeploy Nato troops within Afghanistan.