PARIS, 11 September 2005 — From the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 to the Iraq war and the Hurricane Katrina disaster, the image of the United States as the invincible superpower has been weakening over the past few years, European analysts said.
As the US prepares to mark the fourth anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, the nation with the world’s strongest military and biggest economy has exposed its vulnerability and its need for international support.
“Sept. 11 put the spotlight on America’s vulnerability, just as Hurricane Katrina has in another way. It showed that the country is not that strong or effective,” said Nicole Bacharan, a French author of several works about the United States.
The devastating aftermath of the hurricane that ravaged three US Gulf Coast states and the Iraq war, launched in 2003 without United Nations backing, has shown moreover that Washington needs allies and support from other countries, she added.
The shockwave that was felt throughout the US after the 9/11 attacks stirred up a true patriotic feeling in the American people, which since then has diminished because of the continued fighting in Iraq, Bacharan said, adding that the feeling now has shifted for some to one of shame at the disastrous response to the hurricane, whose death toll may be in the tens of thousands.
The influential German weekly Die Zeit said this week that “contrary to what he did after Sept. 11, 2001, George W. Bush cannot turn the collective shock (of the hurricane) against an external enemy.”
For the United States, Hurricane Katrina may go further than 9/11 “in weakening the image of itself as a nation which is the avenger and protector of the defenseless, the nation that brings order, democracy and prosperity.
Today, it must beg for beds and blankets from foreigners,” the German publication wrote.
For Andre Kaspi, an expert at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris, the US has simply become a “guilty superpower” in pursuing its “preventive war” after the 9/11 attacks.
“Katrina has been compared to the tsunamis, but I did not see for the United States the same kind of global solidarity,” he said.
At London’s Chatham House, the Royal Institute for International Affairs, Bob Ayers does not think the 9/11 attacks changed the US image overseas because that weakness was already there. The world has to understand that even with all its military might a nation is vulnerable to attacks by people who are prepared to commit suicide, he said.
Javier Noya, an expert at Spain’s Royal Elcano Institute, said the onslaught of criticism Bush has faced for the inadequate response to the hurricane-ravaged states will not affect public opinion overseas. “Spaniards have known for a long time that the United States is a very unequal free market society,” he said.