SPIEGEL: The disaster of the last years leads many Americans to doubt the military strength and moral superiority of the nation. Is this country on the verge of a new isolationist phase?

Haass: The danger is an Iraq syndrome. The war is one the American people weren’t quite prepared for: They had not been told it was going to be that difficult and expensive. After the military battlefield phase, they thought it was going to be easy. So this has proven shocking. Nearly 3,000 Americans have lost their lives. Maybe 15,000 – 20,000 Americans have been wounded. Hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent. It has been disruptive on many levels. The danger is that the United States now will be weary of intervening elsewhere, like the cat that once sat on a hot stove and will never sit on any stove again.

SPIEGEL: How long could such a period last?

Haass: It is quite possible that this generation of Americans will be as affected by Iraq as the previous generation was by Vietnam.

SPIEGEL: The world doesn’t need the “little sheriff,” but it needs a strong America.

Haass: Exactly right. There is no doubt that the world needs the United States. We need to stay active in the world, not as a favor to others, but as a favor to ourselves. We cannot turn inward in an age of globalization. Bad things will happen in the world if we are not trying to manage them. The balance of power in Asia, human issues like Darfur, global climate change –- these are problems that are not going to get solved if the United States doesn’t participate actively.

SPIEGEL: Isolationism would be quite a legacy for someone like Bush.

Haass: It would be somewhere between ironic and tragic because this administration has in some ways, like Iraq, been extraordinarily interventionist.

SPIEGEL: What could Europe do?

Haass: The one-word answer is: More. One wants Europe to have more capacity, so it could do more in Afghanistan, or maybe in places like Darfur. One wants Europe to be more internationally oriented. If you could make a criticism that the United States has under-used the diplomatic tool, Europeans often under-use other tools. In many cases, even if anti-Americanism were to fade, there is still a certain lack of preparedness and capability to act. What Europeans have control over is not American foreign policy. What they have control over is their own capacity and willingness to act — and that is what they ought to focus on.

SPIEGEL: Will Bush leave the world with more problems than he found when he came into office?

Haass: Most likely. That said, the administration still has two years to go, so it is too early to judge. All you can say is that it’s sobering where we are. As of now, you would have to say the world is not a safer place.

Interview conducted by Georg Mascolo
(Bulatlat.com)

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