-BUSH JR.

Asia Times: A threadbare emperor tours the world

WASHINGTON - With US President George W Bush on his first tour of major world capitals since the war in Iraq, his handlers are predictably depicting his stature as something akin to William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar "bestrid[ing] the world like a Colossus".

After all, the notion that the new world order most closely resembles Caesar's Pax Romana has become commonplace. History, so its advocates argue, is now witnessing a Pax Americana.

Like Caesar, Bush expects others to show due respect for the global hegemon, suggesting, for example, that he is ready to forgive if not quite forget those, such as French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who doubted his wisdom and determination. Provided that they recognize who is in charge.

French leaders, he told Le Figaro newspaper, "must work to convince their own citizens and show that France is ready to cooperate with the United States", a euphemistic phraseology that Caesar himself may have uttered about restive Gauls 2,000 years ago.