THE UNITED STATES is bogged down in what appears to be an unwinnable war in Iraq; it is facing very unpleasant options in regard to neighbouring Iran’s nuclear programme; senior Nato officers say that the situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating fast; in the former Soviet Union, Georgia and Russia are moving towards military confrontation, with the US seemingly unable to restrain either; in large swathes of Latin America, new nationalist and populist movements are challenging US interests.

And now the totalitarian regime in North Korea has defied the international community by testing a nuclear bomb— and the US appears to have neither military nor effective economic measures with which to respond.

If all this does not prove the reality of American overreach, what does? If US power is to be placed on a firmer basis, its exercise must be more limited. Certain commitments will have to be scaled back or even eliminated if the US is to be able to concentrate on dealing with its most truly vital challenges and enemies.

This is not an argument for isolationism but for the kind of calm, clearheaded global strategy adopted in the past by American leaders such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon: a morally courageous willingness to recognize the greatest threats to the US and to deal with secondary concerns accordingly. When Roosevelt formed an alliance with the Soviet Union against Hitler, or Nixon went to China to do a deal with Chairman Mao, it was assuredly not because they admired the Stalinist or Maoist systems or were prepared to sacrifice vital US interests to them.

Charles de Gaulle defined the nature of statesmanship when he said that “to govern is to choose— usually between unpleasant alternatives”. This is something that the US is finding increasingly difficult to do. For it is torn among a multitude of different domestic lobbies and presided over by an administration that has grossly overestimated US power.

In consequence, it has involved itself in fights in several different parts of the world simultaneously, sometimes over trivial issues.—Dawn/The Los Angeles Times News Service