The USA Complex

The Commander-in-Chief. The Leader of the Free World. When the words "Mr. President" are uttered in an American TV show or movie, I feel like they want to add "of the World" to it. The question here, however, is how did we let ourselves get convinced by this mantra?

To clarify, this post is not about the American government or what it does/does not do; it's about how we react and relate to the American government and its decisions regarding foreign policy.

Back to the subject. I understand that the USA is a very developed country, but how does that convince us that it has the right to meddle in other countries' affairs in such a righteous, here-we-are-saving-you kind of way? Why are we so affected by the American government's statements regarding Middle Eastern countries? After all, this government does what it believes is best for its own country, and if not, then for the people running it.

When Obama first came to power, a lot of Middle Easterners believed that, just because he had African roots and appeared to be less aggressive towards the region than former president Bush, he would work for our interests. The more important question here is not, "why should he?"; it is, "why are we waiting for him to?" Why do we give the USA this unspoken authority over us and then complain when it abuses it? We are the ones giving it that power over us by acknowledging that its decisions are of direct importance to us and our affairs.

Who cares if America's only real concern in the region is Israel? Why are we acting like spoiled children resenting the favourite child that has the rest of us marginalized? America is not our mommy, and we should not let it act like our mommy. How can we do that, I'm sure some people are lamenting now? Well, we should start by removing this follower thinking we have towards it, and comprehend that it is just a country like any other country, one that we can have friendly ties with while agreeing/disagreeing with their foreign policy without fear of getting "spanked".