Bush and Obama, Wars and Economy: Power and People in an Age of Limits and Loss 581Baghdad, and the ease with which ISIS conquered it led most to believe that
the Sunni groups would soon have control of all of Iraq, thereby, as in
Afghanistan, destroying over a decade of American sacrifice and money to
build up an ally there. Ironically, as the U.S. sent aid to the government in
Iraq—and Obama announced another $500 billion commitment in July
2014—to fight ISIS, which was cash-rich from oil money and aid form Syrian
groups, so did Iran, which sent 3 Russian-made attack jets to the Iraqi govern-
ment of Nuri al-Maliki to fly alongside, in circumstances either ironic or sur-
real, the F-16 warplanes the U.S. sold to the Maliki regime. So in both
Afghanistan and Iraq—as well as in Pakistan, where the drones continue to
drop bombs, Libya, where the U.S. invaded to overthrow the regime of
Muommar Qaddafi in 2011 and Syria, where the U.S. continues to fund anti-
Assad rebels—chaos reigns. In no areas has U.S. intervention proved benefi-
cial to either the locals, who have died by the hundreds of thousands, or the
U.S., which has spent money, lost soldiers, and seen its reputation and power
decline progressively and significantly. Outside of the Saudi royal family and
Israel, which receives about $10 million daily from the U.S., there are few
American friends in the region. In just a quarter-century from the end of the
Cold War, where the U.S. boasted of its triumph and was the world’s only
superpower, to the fiascoes and tragedies of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and
elsewhere, American strength and influence have continued to fall.
siMpsons, sopRanos, dRapeR, and white: anti-heRoes and
aMeRican decline
In Treehouse of Horror VII, the Simpsons annual Halloween show, 2 aliens, Kang
and Kodos, take over earth and enslave the population, but not before having
a “free” election that Kang wins. The monsters then have their new subjects
produce weapons to conquer other lands. Marge is not happy. “I don’t under-
stand why we have to build a ray gun to aim at a planet I never even heard
of,” she complains to Homer. His response, typically stupid and insightful at
the same time, was “don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos.” Though cartoon
characters, the Simpson family starred in the most politically-oriented televi-
sion show in modern times, and in this particular exchange Homer is in fact
offering a critique of American politics. The U.S. might have “free” elections,
but the choices, like Kang and Kodos, are never very different and whoever
wins will exploit the people. For Americans in the late 1990s and early 20th