Let's just look at this last few months and ask this simple question: Is America more powerful than it was last summer, or less?

I thought that perhaps the answer was 'more' after seeing the 15-0 Security Council vote that got inspectors back on the ground. Achieving unanimity on a security council that included Syria was no mean feat.

But since then, America's ability to influence events has receded dramatically. We've seen a coalition of the unwilling form between France, Germany, Russia and China; and we've been blown off by Turkey(!). It's unclear how many of these diplomatic failures were caused by massive disagreement over matters of substance vs. team G-Dub's ultra-manly approach to getting what it wants. But it seems pretty clear to me that the most powerful nation in the world gets less powerful every time another country publicly refuses to go along with its positions.