Diminished Expectations

For

nearly a year after 9/11, in conversations throughout Southeast Asia, I encountered sympathy and admiration for the U.S. "Where are you from?" a diplomat or a street vendor would ask. "America," I'd reply, "New York City." This would elicit expressions of outrage at the terrorist attacks, generous inquiries into the well-being of my friends and family and then perhaps a mention of the war in Afghanistan. From the impoverished or oppressed, a request often followed: please tell your President to send help. A faint belief that he might was detectable. A sense that he could, through benign gestures or a forceful imposition of will, was unmistakable.

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Those kinds of conversations are no more. They've been replaced by versions of an exchange I had recently in Kuala Lumpur. A Malaysian political analyst asked about my provenance. As I replied his eyes narrowed. "Can you explain what your President is doing?"

Before I moved to Asia two years ago, I had underestimated how much psychological space America—the nation and the ideals it represented—occupied in the world. But over the past few months, and especially since the start of Gulf War II, it's become apparent that respect for America has severely diminished. Pledges to bring freedom and (maybe) democracy to the citizens of Saddam's horrifying regime—which only Tony Blair articulated effectively during a U.N. debate marked by the cynical opportunism of all parties involved—ring hollow when voiced by the Bush camp. Making war to bring peace is a hard sell, especially when TV images provide stark reminders of the real human costs of that conflict. What's more, though the war in Iraq is still in its early stages, the inability of the U.S. and British forces to deliver a swift victory—and the early success militiamen have had in temporarily sidetracking the march to Baghdad—is chipping away at the aura of American military invincibility. It has happened before, in Somalia in 1993 for example, but never was there this level of round-the-clock coverage of each roadblock and minor setback. And never before were there networks that tailored their broadcasts as platforms for American righteousness (Fox News Channel, most bombastically) or the U.S.'s tactical and moral fallibility (al-Jazeera and al-Arabia).

America, to many Asians, once represented ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. People whose lives were proscribed by poverty or tyranny or both at least knew there was a place where freedom was said to ring. The place's existence stirred hope in the most hopeless circumstances. And millions emigrated and found better lives there. Some religions allow the earthbound to imagine a heaven that might one day welcome them into its splendor; so, too, did America—a secular promised land—allow the world's dispossessed to believe its liberty, and its prosperity, could one day be theirs as well. They forgave or overlooked U.S. foreign-policy sins such as a coddled dictator in the Philippines, illegal invasions in Cambodia or deadly subterfuge in Laos. The stirring ideals of America's founding fathers continued to resonate abroad even if the ideals' caretakers occasionally ignored them.

In Asia and beyond, however, the exported and willfully internalized American dream has been punctured by months of failed and feckless diplomacy, by the Bush Administration's disregard for international opinion and now by sandstorms, alleged errant missiles and the fact that war is rarely quick and never clean. Last month in Yogyakarta, Indonesia's intellectual center, numerous students told me that yes, they would like to work in the U.S.—because there were no jobs at home, not because they admired America. Religious and community leaders expressed anger toward the Bush Administration—not, they stressed, at the American people—as well as disappointment that it seemed to be abandoning the precepts for which it had been most respected. Quite simply, they feel let down.

Asians I've met used to say America is the country that defeated the Nazis and won the cold war. Now, in the mainstream, I hear that America "was" the country that performed those noble services. This 21st century incarnation, with Bush at the helm, "is" the country that they feel countenances Israeli occupation of Palestine, that never articulated a convincing or consistent case for war against Iraq, and that has temporarily suspended tenets of its own Constitution.

We shouldn't be surprised at the vehemence of the protests around Asia or that the debate has become as much about Bush's America as Saddam's Iraq. This is the anger of betrayal, fueled in part by the frantic outcry that emerges when one realizes that what he or she has idealized cannot or will not live up to those expectations.