With America unable to play the natural leadership role of a sole superpower, competing powers including rising China, resurrecting Russia and semi-deferential, semi-ambitious regions like the European Community are expanding their global influence. Did George Bush pause, between gaffes, to notice that Russia has become the new arms czar in the very region he visited for the APEC conference? China is now immensely more influential on the African continent and steadily continues to accrue goodwill in Southeast Asia. America may have been instrumental in turning East Timor into an independent nation, but it is the Chinese who are providing the infrastructure for a government there. People use a football stadium long after a military camp has served its limited purpose. America's only significant response in the region, a new proposed strategic alliance between the United States, Japan, Singapore, Australia, and India, is controversial enough in India, the new member of the party, that it may help force a general election a year ahead of schedule.

And Osama bin Laden has returned from waiting in the wings, repositioned as a mere enfant terrible. Bush has spent five years, with the help of troops, satellites and the unmatched power of the Pentagon, to find Osama – the first, and the just, reason for going to war after 9/11. Bush still cannot find Osama. But the latest of Osama’s videotapes begs the question: How is it that each time Osama wants to find America, he can always do so? Did the tapes that once arrived at Al-Jazeera get there on Aladdin's flying carpet? Does the Internet, which delivers these new tapes, survive without servers? Are those servers untraceable? Too many questions, not enough answers.