So let me get this straight. The President of the ostensibly most powerful country in the world travels halfway around the world to meet with the Prime Minister of a much less powerful country, indeed one on which the more powerful country has spent over $400 billion, for which it has lost almost 3000 lives, and in the name of which has been violating some of its own most basic tenets of democracy at home in the process --- and it's the leader of the weaker recipient country that snubs the more powerful patron's dinner invite?

There's a lot that's enmeshed here. One pattern that strikes me is another case of the United States over-committing to a state it considers a client state and falling into the "tail-wagging-the-dog" pattern of diplomacy. We think we have leverage over them, but they end up with more over us. Some past cases with their differences but with important lessons about our illusions about our leverage:

Vietnam: The Kennedy administration's complicity in the 1963 assassination of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in one sense was the epitome of leverage. In actuality, though, the act itself reflected American powerlessness to do anything else. Moreover, the United States then felt even more responsible for establishing a stable and popular regime in South Vietnam -- and thus, even more willing to increase American involvement in the conflict. Accordingly, the flow of leverage was reversed even further.

Lebanon 1982-84: When Amin Gemayel came to power following the assassination of his brother Bashir, he ruled more like the leader of a faction (for him, the Christians) than the leader of the nation (Shi'ites, Sunnis and Druze). He spurned overtures for political reconciliation from the Muslim factions. He used the national army more to defend and advance the interests of the Phalange than as a truly national institution. One major study at the time attributed his unwillingness to reform directly to "a comforting belief in the support of the United States."

Iran and the Fall of the Shah, 1979: As Walter Laquer wrote at the time, the Shah was "not pro-Western, but pro-Iranian." When Nixon and Kissinger offered him a blank check for arms purchases without any significant quid pro quo, in the name of regional containment of the Soviets including balancing against Iraq then a Soviet ally, the flow of leverage was essentially reversed. Thereafter, whenever the United States considered restricting arms sales, the Shah would threaten to turn to the "many other sources in the world just waiting for us to go and shop in their stores." He also was fond of reminding American leaders, especially after the fall of Saigon, that "I am afraid that today America's credibility is not too high. You look rather like a crippled giant . . . Iran can hurt you as badly if not more than you can hurt us." Thus, by the time the 1978-79 crisis developed, as Gary Sick wrote in his excellent book All Fall Down, "whether we liked it or not Iran was the regional tail wagging the superpower dog." There are lessons here amidst the differences.

The Hadley memo that Ivo blogged on shows the Bush administration can't make up its mind whether Maliki won't or can't bring order. It's both. And he doesn't feel that the United States either can provide the oomph he needs to do so, or that he has much to fear if he keeps won'ting and can'ting . One can only hope that this personal snub might break President Bush out of his denial that gets scarier by the day.