In all honesty, American power in the global sphere will continue to erode no matter what foreign policy we put into place. Empires always crumble.

What's the nature of power? Max Weber proposed that it was the ability to inflict violence against others. Well. America has 12,000+ nuclear warheads, enough of which are mounted on three stage inter-continental ballastic missiles that there's not a patch of ground we can't reach out and destroy. Moreover, America has the distinction of being the only folks who have used nuclear/atomic weapons against people. If that's not power, then I don't know what is. So, Weber's not entirely right.

Power has a lot to do with capital. Who has it and who doesn't. America had power during the Cold War not only because we were at the top of the arms race, but because we were buying stuff like crazy. We were the consumer market to sell to. We had the largest number of consumers with disposable income and willingness to get credit. What is America now? The lucrative jobs that allowed us to be those consumers have eroded to China and India and left us in debt. China is slowly taking that consumer position, followed very closely by India. Our disposable income is going. 1/5th of our population had to put utility bills on credit cards last winter. Next winter will probably bankrupt them.

We've had a succession of presidents who haven't truly understood where America's power is located. Part of it was the standing military they controlled and the wealth they commanded. Most of it is hidden in the consumer base they've been elected by. Who cares if Madascar has a most favored nation trade status? Who cares if the US does? If our economy keeps things up, who will care in 30 years?

Iran's power lies in the fact that they have oil and we want it. If they didn't have oil, we wouldn't pay any more attention to Iran than we did to Rwanda and Sierra Leone. Less, actually, since Iran doesn't have a history of genocide. It's a fact of our social world. Poor people have no power because they don't have any capital.

How does that help the next president deal with policy? A lot of folks have bought into the lie that it's not about the oil. The first thing the next President has to do is quit believing his PR and tell the truth, at least to himself. It is about the oil. OPEC is the dealer and the US is the celebutante crack whore. We can't help it, almost our entire infrastructure, from suburbs to health care, is built around the auto industry. That means that the next President has to fix the problems in his back yard so he's got something to bring to the bargaining table. The best thing he can bring to any talk with Iran is "We're not buying oil today."

That means putting Americans to work finding something other than oil to use. Of course, the last 8 years of foreign policy have been shaped by CEOs who have vested interest in oil.

Someday, we're going to be relegated to influencing global policy, not making it like we're used to. England had to do it. It's the nature of consumerism.