America: you’ll miss it when it’s gone

Don’t say Tony Blair didn’t warn you that you won’t like a world in which America has decided to become a self-centred spectator rather than a player. That day seems to be approaching, a response to the self-indulgent anti-Americanism that has become so fashionable in Britain and Europe.

The American presidential election campaign is about to get serious, and sooner than usual, since about half of all the delegates to the nominating conventions of the Democratic and Republican parties will have been chosen less than a year from now. In the absence of the emergence of some dark horse, the Democrats will either nominate Hillary Clinton (the Rodham will be dropped for the duration of the campaign), a candidate of the centre-Left; the very-Left Barack Obama, his emollience and what passes for charisma these days concealing his 100 per cent liberal voting record and uncertain grasp of the issues; or the hard-Left John Edwards, a smiley version of shrieky Howard Dean. The Republicans will counter with John McCain, a hero intensely focused on defending America from Muslim jihadists, the Kremlin and a militarising China; or Mitt Romney, who is having some success wooing the Christian Right despite his Mormon religion, which many Christians consider a cult; or perhaps Rudy Giuliani, who aims to overcome the pro-abortion, anti-gun positions and urban lifestyle so unacceptable to the Christian Right by promising to appoint conservative judges.

All are internationalists. But the circumstances in which they will be campaigning to succeed George W. Bush might well drive them towards a form of neo-isolationism that will be as pleasing to the jihadists as it will be to the Yankee-go-home crowds that are urging both Gordon Brown and David Cameron to distance themselves from the United States.

By the time the two parties pick their candidates, Iraq will have been settled one way or the other.