by Patrick J. Buchanan – December 5, 2006

During last summer’s Israeli-Hezbollah war, Condi Rice assured us that we were witnessing the “birth pangs of a new Middle East.” Condi may be right. But that new Middle East appears to be one in which U.S. influence is visibly waning and America is on the way out. Consider the returns from November. Bush’s war was repudiated in a Democratic triumph. Our NATO allies begged off sending more troops to Afghanistan to fight the resurgent Taliban. After a leaked White House memo insulted him as ignorant or incompetent, Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki stiffed Bush by refusing to join him and the king of Jordan for dinner….