Post-Katrina American foreign policy

Last week I talked about the future foreign policy costs of Katrina. In Slate, Richard Haass talks about the current foreign policy costs of Katrina:

It will be no easier to cordon off U.S. foreign policy from the effects of Hurricane Katrina than it has been to protect New Orleans from the waters of Lake Pontchartrain. That a purely domestic event should have profound consequences for American foreign policy is not in and of itself new. U.S. prestige suffered a blow in 1992 when the Los Angeles riots were broadcast around the world. By contrast, Ronald Reagan’s firm handling of the air-traffic controllers strike a decade before communicated resolve and firmness. The initial federal and local reactions to Hurricane Katrina, however, have sent the opposite message. The images seen around the world communicated a lack of competence and considerable chaos and suffering. The dominant overseas reaction has been sympathy mixed with shock and horror at what was seen by many as evidence of racism and a reminder of the extreme poverty in which many Americans live. America’s enemies indulged in schadenfreude. Hugo Ch?vez could not resist the chance to taunt President Bush; North Korea radio linked the U.S. “defeat” in Iraq with its “defeat” by Katrina; jihadists celebrated what had happened and the possibility the price of oil would soar even higher. The world’s only remaining superpower appeared to be anything but. In an era of 24-hour satellite television and the Internet, public diplomacy is about who Americans are and what they do, not just what they say. Unlike Las Vegas, what happens here does not stay here. The global impact goes beyond impressions. A priority of this administration’s foreign policy is to promote democracy around the world. But the attractiveness of the American model, and the ability of the United States to be an effective advocate for more democratic, capitalist societies, which had already been weakened by the disarray in Iraq, is now weaker still as a result of the disarray at home. It will be more difficult to make the case for free markets and more open societies if the results of such reforms come to be associated with the disorder seen in New Orleans.

Read the whole thing. And then, go read this Economist summary of the past week. UPDATE: One thing I’m hoping about Katrina — like what happened after 9/11 — is that the estimated body count turns out to be less than originally expected. This AP report (link via Instapundit) offers some hope that this will also happen post-Katrina. ANOTHER UPDATE: James Joyner thinks Haass is overstating his case — particularly on the energy angle:

I agree that we don’t have much of an energy policy. He’s flat wrong, though, that substitutes forms of energy and diversifcation won’t work. When oil was cheap and plentiful–which is to say, all but a few months in the history of the country–there was little incentive to develop those alternatives. Now that the price appears to be permanently higher owing to increased demand from surging economies abroad and other factors, that’s likely to change.

Andrew Sullivan takes a gloomier view: “What the response to Katrina has done is make the U.S. super-power look a lot less credible, a lot less fearsome, a lot less capable. Ditto, of course, with regard to the inept conduct of the war in Iraq.”