Human Rights Watch on Tuesday released its annual global survey of human rights conditions for 2003, in which it made the important observation that "global support for the war on terrorism is diminishing partly because the United States too often neglects human rights in its conduct of the war."

The global reach of American power today is so great, and virtually unchallenged, that the United States has assumed the self-appointed position of setter of global political norms and economic values; in return, the world now compares Washington’s conduct toward the world with Washington’s exhortations to the world.

Those of us out here in the world who value our own dignity and security as much as we admire America’s rich national values urge Washington to grasp the consequences of its policies and style of conduct around the world. The predominant messages to the United States are that: 1) We are more impressed by the consistent application of values than by their repeated exhortation; 2) we believe that those who make the rules should live by the same rules; and 3) we reject the simplistic notion that the cumulative, integrated complexities of our global societies’ history, culture, politics, and worldviews can or should be judged according to one-dimensional and rather seasonal standards, this season’s standard being our position on the "war against terror" ­ a worthy war, but one that suffers the handicap of seasonality nevertheless.

Some 15 months since the United States launched the war against terrorism, the larger global picture points to a growing divergence between the projection of American military power around the world and the condition of Washington’s political credibility around that same world. This is because most peoples and governments share Washington’s desire to wage war against terror but reject Washington’s sense that it enjoys a unique, quasi-divine mandate not only to define the aims and methods of this war, but also to make it the sole criterion by which other peoples and governments are judged.

The Human Rights Watch report released Tuesday is just one example of this problem. It notes that terrorists violate basic human rights principles because they target civilians, but also that "the United States undermines those principles when it overlooks human rights abuses by anti-terror allies such as Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia and Afghan warlords."

Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said that "the United States is far from the world’s worst human rights abuser, but Washington has so much power today that when it flouts human rights standards, it damages the human rights cause worldwide," adding that the US government’s engagement on human rights has been compromised by its unwillingness to confront a number of crucial partners, and its refusal to be bound by standards it preaches to others.

Another live example is the glaring dichotomy between Washington’s policy to prepare to attack Iraq military while engaging North Korea diplomatically, in pursuit of the same stated goal of preventing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The combination of inconsistency, double standards, and unilateral militarism reflected in such policies results in a situation where many in the world fear Washington, but many fewer respect it. We also witness the simultaneous trend of people around the world losing their fear of the United States, while a few people actively attack symbols of its power.

(The parallels with Israel’s policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians are striking: The increased use of Israel’s overwhelming military power against the Palestinians in the last 28 months has only resulted in greater Palestinian resistance and attacks against Israelis, more Israeli deaths and injuries, rising insecurity and fear among Israelis, and an obvious loss of fear of Israel among Palestinians. Palestinian children now routinely chase Israeli Army jeeps and tanks and try to place Palestinian flags on them, reminding us that the human will to live free is greater than the human fear of dying in a struggle for freedom.)