7-05-06, 9:02 am

ÜBERPOWER: THE IMPERIAL TEMPTATION OF AMERICA by JOSEF JOFFE (W.W. Norton & Company, 271 pages) reviewed by William Grimes in The New York Times for Wednesday, June 28, 2006.

Grimes is impressed with this book by the conservative editor and publisher of the German magazine Die Zeit, calling it a 'lucid, literate, and tough-minded look at America’s international future.' I hope to show, just from Grimes’ review, that the book appears to be inane and sophomoric.

The reviewer tells us we live in a new historical epoch where, for the first time in history, one superpower has more power than 'all potential enemies combined' (it can't even control Baghdad).This superpower is the US, called the 'überpower' by Joffe and 'hyperpuissance' [hyperpower] by the 'terrified French.'

Looking back over the past century we see that the balance of power game between several great powers failed (two world wars) and resulted in a bipolar world-- the US and the USSR. The USSR held the US 'in check' while the US was the 'guarantor of freedom, democracy and prosperity.' This is what makes the book so inane. Freedom for whom? The people of Latin America, of Iran under the Shah, of South Africa under white rule, of the Vietnamese, etc., etc. Forget 'democracy' with all the dictators the US propped up in the Cold War. And as for 'prosperity'-- that was denied to the third world and reserved to the first world due to imperialist super exploitation of the majority of the world's people.

Joffe goes on to say, according to Grimes, that it doesn’t matter what the US does in the world--'The mere fact that it can act with impunity causes alarm.' This is a shallow reflection. What causes alarm is not that the US can act 'with impunity' [it can’t, it fled Lebanon and Somalia, was defeated in Vietnam, is bogged down in Iraq, etc.,] but that the Bush administration thinks it can act with impunity. That causes more than alarm, it causes untold suffering for hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

Joffe goes on to say, Grimes reports, that the European opposition to the war on Iraq was 'not simply on the merits' but was also 'a matter of principle or instinct.' Here are Joffe’s own words: 'America’s triumph would grant yet more power to the one and only superpower-- and this on a stage where it had already reduced France and Russia, the E.U. and the U.N. to bit players.' Who knows what Bush would have done had he had a 'triumph' in Iraq. Would he have invaded Syria, Iran, or maybe North Korea, or Cuba or Venezuela? From the way the White House was talking in 2003 and 2004 there is no reason to think the Bushites would have stopped with Iraq.

Joffe maintains, Grimes writes, that 'a significant percentage of Europeans denounce [American] policy simply because it comes from the United States, source of all the world’s miseries.' A pretty lame statement! This type of opinion forecloses serious discussion. So many Europeans are just against America because it is America, blah, blah, blah. And, by the way, we are informed that this anti-US feeling 'goes back centuries'! Centuries!! The US has only been around a mite over two centuries. I don’t think the ancestors of the readers of Le Monde were all that hostile in 1914 or in the 1940s. Perhaps those whose descendants now read Die Zeit may have been. But I think that the current 'anti-Americanism' he deplores is a response to the war in Iraq and the Bush administration’s antidemocratic and dictatorial policies, it does not date back to the French and Indian War.

Joffe (with a rightwing German's typical lack of sensitivity) next compares anti-Americanism to anti-Semitism! Joffe writes, 'Like the Jews who were simultaneously denounced as capitalist bloodsuckers and communist subversives, America gets it coming and going.' What can he mean? This looks like a ploy to just dismiss any criticism of US policy, the same way any anti-Semite should be dismissed.

Grimes gives the following example of Joffe’s meaning: 'When it [the US] does not intervene, say in Rwanda, it is wrong. When it does intervene, it is accused of naked imperialism.' This is high level analysis. The truth is that an intervention to prevent genocide, along with the UN, in Rwanda would not have caused the US to be called naked imperialists. Neither would an intervention by supporting the African Union or UN in Darfur.

But, the Bay of Pigs, yes: the contras in Nicaragua: yes, the death squads in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala yes; Vietnam, yes; Iraq, definitely yes. Looked at case by case it seems that the US only intervenes when it thinks its 'imperial' interests are at stake.

Joffe seems to know this for he writes, 'America has interests everywhere; it cannot withdraw into indifference or isolation, and so all the world's troubles land on its plate.' What a choice! Be everywhere or be isolated. Grimes points out, citing Henry Kissinger [a war criminal] that the US needs consensus. Grimes writes, 'Without it, the United States can act, but it cannot succeed.' Well then, what happened to acting with 'impunity'? If the review accurately reflects the contents of Joffe's book, save yourself both some time and money and read a better book.

--Thomas Riggins is the book review editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at