While the world awaits the outcome of the longest and most expensive presidential election in US history, it is perhaps an appropriate moment to reflect on the power of both the US president and the US itself.
The American president is the most powerful person on earth. That is not solely because of the ability of US to intervene in so many corners of the world and impose its will in international deliberations. It is also a reflection of the power a president enjoys within the American political system. There is a strong argument for calling them elected absolute monarchs. When the US Constitution was created in the late 18th century during the fight for freedom from British colonial rule there were no existing representative democratic systems to emulate in the search for a new political order. The system almost the world over was monarchy — power in the hands of single individual. The founding fathers wanted a democratic alternative. So they came up with the only one that made sense at the time — putting power in the hands of an individual elected every four years. There were some checks and balances in the form of Congress and the means, in extremis, to remove him but he was in reality an absolute monarch. Never has that been so apparent. President George Bush has dared even to imprison people without trial — and not just foreigners in Guantanamo.
It is too easy to claim that the American Constitution was working well enough until corrupted by Bush and company. Many Americans are doing just that, pulled as they are by the wholly human desire to blame the failures of a cherished system on one individual. But they are mistaken. Guilty though it is for abusing both the letter and spirit of the law, the Bush administration is simply the latest and most extreme in a line of administrations to do so. It is not the first to use every opportunity to extend presidential power. It was not the one that showed that the constitutional means to remove a president from office do not work; it was President Clinton. But that knowledge allowed the Bush administration to be even more imperious and reckless than any other.
It is an occupational hazard for superpowers to be disliked and yet appreciated, even envied, at one and the same time. Never has one been so despised. That too is wholly the doing of the Bush administration which, in running so roughshod over international law and concern, has made Americans seem a completely arrogant nation. But there are plenty of caring and responsible Americans who deeply resent the way in which Bush has sullied their reputation. The desire for a new multipolar world, where the views and concerns of other nations are heard and valued and not just the American will that dominates is why there is such international enthusiasm for Barack Obama. The change he champions is one that billions beyond the US endorse. We do not want a wounded or a humiliated America. We want a strong America — but we also want an America that respects the rest of the world and believes in international justice. Whether that will ever happen while so much power is in the hands of one person remains to be seen. As Lord Acton observed, power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
