America’s own mistakes, tactical and strategic, have speeded its decline. The failure to find banned weapons in Saddam’s Iraq and the torture at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib have taintedAmerica’s moral authority. The application of American firepower has, ironically, also raised the bar for defying America’s will. Iran and its allies, including Syria, Hamas and Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shia party-cum-militia, feel they can call America’s bluff because they think that, having burned its fingers in Iraq and Afghanistan, it will no longer back harsh words with invasions.美国在战略与战术上的错误加速了自身的衰落。由于在伊拉克未能找到萨达姆政权拥有禁用武器的证据以及在关塔那摩和阿布格莱布监狱对囚犯使用酷刑，这些丑闻玷污了美国的形象，损害了美国的道德权威。具有讽刺意味的是，美国使用武力的结果反而是使反美势力愈加猖獗。伊朗及其盟友，包括叙利亚、哈马斯和真主党（黎巴嫩什叶派政党暨民兵），他们认定美国是只纸老虎，认为美国在伊拉克和阿富汗曾惹火烧身，已经吃过苦头，虽然嘴里还会说点狠话，但不会再采取入侵的行动了。
You can see how they might reach that judgment. Aside from nearly 6,000 American fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan, the expenditure, so far, of more than $1.1 trillion on military operations in those theatres has sapped the will for more campaigns. The cost of keeping a single soldier on thground now exceeds $500,000 a year—a strong reason for a poorer America to reduce its presence in the region.从下面的数字你就可以看出它们是如何得出这一结论的。美国在伊拉克和阿富汗除了有近6000名美国大兵阵亡外，迄今为止，用于这两个战场军事行动的开支已经超过了1万1千亿美元，削弱了美国采取更大规模军事行动的意志。现在，驻扎在这些地区的每名士兵每年的支出要在50万美元以上，对于财政上日渐捉襟见肘的美国，这是减少其在该地区存在的一个充分理由。
The incoming, Tea-Party-infused Congress is likely to make things harder. Whereas rivalry between Democrats and Republicans used to end at the water’s edge, it now extends into foreign policy. Despite the ratification of the New START treaty at the end of 2010, Congress is beset by partisanship, even in petty matters. Solely because of partisan obstruction, Mr Obama has yet to secure approval for his choice of two career diplomats as ambassadors to Turkey and Syria.新一届国会有了茶党的加入，事情可能就更加难办了。以往民主党与共和党之争只限于国内事务，现在就要扩展到外交政策上了。尽管在2010年底《新削减战略武器条约》获得了批准，但可以看出国会即使在这类琐碎事务上也困扰于党派之争的事实。仅仅是由于党派之争，奥巴马总统选择两个职业外交官作为驻土耳其和叙利亚大使的任命迄今尚未获得批准。
America’s pro-Israel lobby shows no sign of losing strength. Jonathan Broder, foreign-affairs editor of the Congressional Quarterly, discerns an effort by Republicans to woo Jewish voters, long more supportive of Democrats, by outbidding the administration over Israel. Eric Cantor, the incoming House majority leader, has proposed moving the $3 billion annual military grant to Israel from the foreign-aid budget to the Pentagon, in effect shielding it from spending cuts. “Not only would this remove a lever for American pressure,” warns Mr Broder, “it would make us silent accomplices in the settlement process.”美国亲以色列院外集团的实力并未露出衰退的迹象。乔纳森?布罗德（Jonathan Broder）是《国会季刊》外交事务版的主编，他洞察了共和党人用比政府对以色列更高的出价来拉拢犹太选民的企图。而长期以来犹太人的支持是偏向于民主党人。埃里克?康托尔（Eric Cantor）是新任的的众议院多数党领袖，他已经提议将每年30亿美元的对以色列军事援助拨款从对外援助预算项目移到军事预算中，使之能够避开政府预算的削减。布罗德先生警告说：“这不仅使美国减少了一根施加压力的杠杆，而且尽管美国对（以色列在被占领土上非法）移民的问题沉默不语，但事实上成了帮凶。”
However, other Washington observers lament that the lessons of failure in the Middle East have yet to be learned. “Obama said that we had not only to change the war in Iraq, but to change the mindset that led to the war, and this has not happened,” says Brian Katulis of the Centre for American Progress, a left-leaning Washington think-tank. Despite a view that soft power can be as potent as military muscle, he says, this has not translated into policy. Marc Lynch, of George Washington University, agrees: “The lesson we seem to have learned from Iraq is not, ‘Disaster, don’t do it again’, but rather, ‘Now we know how to do counterinsurgency.’”然而令其他观察家们感到哀伤的是，美国还没有从其中东地区的失败中吸取教训。“美国进步中心”是一家观点左倾的华盛顿智库，该中心的布赖恩?凯图伊思（Brian Katulis ）说：“奥巴马曾说过，我们不仅要改变伊拉克战争，而是要改变导致了这场战争的心态，但现在并没有发生这种变化。”他说，尽管有一种观点认为软实力可以像军事实力一样强大，但这种观点并没有转化为对外政策。乔治?华盛顿大学的马克?林奇（Marc Lynch）对此表示赞同，他说：“我们似乎已经从伊拉克得到了教训，但事实并非如此。本来应该是'不要再产生这样的灾难了'，结果却成了'现在我们知道怎么镇压叛乱了。”
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