COLUMN: Return of the ugly American

In 1958, a book called “The Ugly American” was published. It was a critical account of American diplomatic incompetence in foreign relations.

Although the book was fiction, it accurately described the arrogance of U.S. diplomatic officials and their poor attitudes toward foreign countries. The term “ugly American” also became synonymous with the ill-mannered behavior of U.S. citizens traveling overseas.

Eventually, Americans began to recognize its negative impact on our reputation abroad, so we improved our behavior and the term pretty much disappeared. That is, until now. To no one’s surprise, in foreign lands, the title, “the ugly American,” is used to describe our president.

World leaders have long said Trump embodies negative American stereotypes: Arrogance, ignorance of international relations, boorishness. They compare him to a schoolyard bully and complain how he disregards traditional diplomacy. His impulsive decision to attack Iran has simply magnified their misgivings about him.

Apparently, when the bombing began, the U.S. and Iran were still negotiating the terms of an agreement to prevent their development of nuclear weapons. Both sides were shocked by the attack because they were still talking.

In response to America’s actions, a United Nations spokesman has called the United States a “rogue nation.” That describes a country that acts outside of international law, threatens global security and ignores diplomatic rules. It’s the same designation given to Russia when it invaded Ukraine.

The U.S. had already lost its good name around the world because of the administration’s punishment of specific immigrant groups and elimination of food aid programs for starving children. Other nations were already angry about our unpredictable and punitive tariffs.

They were dismayed when we arbitrarily withdrew from traditional alliances and treaties intended to keep the world stable, and they especially resented threats to take over their territories and countries at will.

Fifty-nine percent of Americans say they oppose this war with Iran, perhaps because they have long memories. When the U.S. entered World War II, no one questioned the decision. We were attacked directly by Japan, and Hitler was overtaking nation after nation in his quest for world domination.

The choice was to defend ourselves or die. Every American was involved, at home and abroad, sacrificing anything and everything to defeat a monster.

Ever since, each time the United States has gone to war, the government convinced us the war was needed. At first, we bought our government’s arguments, but then doubts emerged about the wisdom of long, drawn-out fighting that caused horrific deaths and injury to our troops. Eventually, we learned the premise for the war was wrong.

The Vietnam War was sold as a need to combat a communist threat to America, and, for a while, we believed it. But 20 years of fighting under horrible conditions, more than 58,000 deaths and 153,000 injured of our troops and two million Vietnam civilian deaths, Americans doubted the government’s claims. We endured years of bitter conflict over the war here at home before the U.S. finally withdrew from southeast Asia.

In retaliation for 9/11, we invaded Afghanistan, although the terrorists who attacked the twin towers were from Saudi Arabia. We stayed there for 20 years and lost 2,500 service members while 2.7 million Afghans became refugees. Today, Afghanistan is the same as if we were never there.

Not satisfied with fighting in just one country, we invaded Iraq in 2003 on the false premise their dictator, Saddam Hussein, had weapons of mass destruction. None were ever found.

We captured Saddam, killed thousands of Iraqis and lost nearly 5,000 of our own soldiers. We stayed there for five years with no progress, except for the rise of ISIS and the strengthening of Iran.

We never paid for the cost of that war, and we’ve had an enormous national debt ever since.

Now, we’re at war with Iran. It’s just us and Israel, and there’s conflicting information from the administration about why we launched the attack. We’re not expecting other allies to join in the fight, but Iran will probably get help from Russia and China.

Trump says Iranians should choose a new leader and govern themselves democratically, the same goal we had in Afghanistan and Iraq. Forcing regime change onto Middle East countries has obviously not worked.

With our image again that of an ugly America, success is going to be hard to come by.