I don’t think the US is necessarily seen as a ‘Bad Boy’ of World Politics, perhaps ‘Sick Boy’ is more suitable thanks largely to the current administration. The George W. years have been very destructive for the image and respect that the US receives from other States across the World. In Australia we are quite amazed that he is actually the President.

I travel quite a bit and I have found that this is a widely held view and not just in countries than are flooded with media and TV coverage. I have even encountered an illiterate Kenyan Fisherman who tended to blame all of the World’s problems on Bush, such is his renown for being involved with failures and cock-ups. Unfortunately though, when the Captain of a team is not up to par in many ways it makes the whole team look bad. Powell was smart enough to ‘exit…stage left’ early in the piece when he realized what he had got himself into and is probably respected for that decision here yet everyone else was quite happy to go down with the ship and contribute to the body-blow to the US that is Iraq. The US may not sanction political assassination but if they felt they really had to end the regime one bullet for Saddam would have been a lot easier for the world to bear than the thousands of innocent civilians killed and the military casualties. It is here though that the United Nations must also accept some of the blame for failing to take Saddam to The Hague over his use of chemical weapons against the Kurds. If it had there would have been no possible reason for Bush to engage the country of Iraq in conflict. The previous use of such weapons combined with the fact that the act had gone largely uninvestigated helped set the psychological seed for acceptance of invasion in the US subconscious.

No, ‘Bad Boy’ is definitely incorrect. The US has been seriously marred during Bush’s Term by no fault of the American public and the world looks to Obama to put it back on track. We can only hope that he positively affects US Politics to the degree his campaign and personality seem to promise.