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I doubt that most Europeans who say the United States is a greater threat to world peace than Iran honestly believe in the comparison. The poll results reflect significant distortions where European citizens magnify American global responsibility and minimize Iran’s potential to affect their lives.
Anti-Americanism in Greece cannot rise much higher than it has been in the past few years, where polls have consistently shown Greeks as the most wary of Europeans regarding Washington’s policies. The reasons are many and have as much to do with domestic politics as with U.S. policy toward Greece, the region and the world.
Athens - It should be the obligation of every individual, every country and every transnational organization to try to prevent - or, failing that, to condemn - a crime of such magnitude as the organized extermination of Turkey’s Armenian population. You are either on the side of right or you are not. So, on the face of it, this should be a simple issue for the United States and for every other country. Reflecting this, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Resolution 106 claims, “Despite the international recognition and affirmation of the Armenian Genocide, the failure of the domestic and international authorities to punish those responsible for the Armenian Genocide is a reason why similar genocides have recurred and may recur in the future.” It concludes that, “a just resolution will help prevent future genocides.” (That remains to be seen: The Holocaust, though it was officially recognized and its perpetrators were punished, was followed by genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda and “ethnic cleansing,” genocide’s little brother, in several other instances.)
ATHENS - In the juggernaut that is a U.S. presidential election, it may be easy for the candidates to forget that the world is bigger than their constituency. Yet the winner will be called upon to take decisions that will determine the future not only of his or her country, but of the whole world. There is nothing new in this: for decades the United States has been the single country that makes the greatest difference in world affairs. What the new president will face, though, is the challenge of governing a country that stands on the brink of decline or revival – one that faces greater domestic and international challenges than ever before, at exactly the time that its powers are diminished and the confidence of its people shaken by economic crisis and military misadventure.
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