G8 x 2 1/2

As long as I can remember, it seems the world has been run by a few top players: either the five permanent members of the UN Security Council—the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China, with a few other completely marginal countries tossed in for the costumes—or the economic big boys invited to form the ‘G7’ or ‘G8’.

So it’s a bit startling to realize that the new line-up of power brokers, the so-called ‘G20’, is not only a lot larger but completely distinct in its make-up: five countries from Europe plus the EU, five from Asia, one from Africa, three North Americans, two South Americans, Turkey, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Enough for a two-day diversity seminar.

One of W’s many hubristic goofs was to toss the old world oligopoly into the trash. He ignored the Security Council and invaded Iraq without its imprimatur, and he wiped his butt with the concerns of other countries on the economic front. If people didn’t like the way the United States did things, they just didn’t understand the eternal glories of free markets and could piss off up a rope.

Now things are so bad that he couldn’t bring back those old partners with an offer of b.j.s in the Rose Garden, and anyway it would be pointless because they’re getting collectively blamed for the mess we’re in. They didn’t exactly create it, but they couldn’t stop it either. They’re history.

Obama lived in Indonesia as a kid, and now he’ll be meeting the Indonesian PM at those summits. It’s a curious symbol of a more modest, more truly globalized America finding its new place in a very different world.