Dennis Ross, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, ponders those Americans who ponder whether — after Afghanistan — U.S. credibility and reliability will ever be the same to the world; you know, just as we permanently lost our credibility and reliability after …
Vietnam,
the Iran hostage crisis,
the 1983 killing of 241 Marines in Beirut, for which President Reagan never retaliated,
the terrorist bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, "killing 19 U.S. airmen," for which President Clinton didn't retaliate, either,
the WMD-absent Iraq invasion, which deepened "sectarian conflict" and led to ISIS,
the failure of President Obama "to react militarily when chemical weapons were, in fact, used against Syrian civilians,"
and Trump, whose name alone suffices.
As Ross argues in so many words: Like it or not, the U.S. is the indispensable nation; no longer the U.S. of the American Century, for sure, but still "the most powerful country in the world." It can no more forfeit its leadership than the world — excluding its bad actors, of course — would want it to.
"It’s easy to despair over the idea that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has forever doomed American credibility," concludes Ross. "But it can recoup, just as it has before."
It can — depending on who leads it. And that's up to us, not the world.