Is the leadeship of the US now seriously flawed

"There was no emergency. No one had attacked anyone. There wasn't any new WMD. We could have taken the time and got it right. The forces weren't ready to go in. They have said that themselves." Claire Short.

An inquiry in the UK into the lead up to the Iraq war, is showing what many of us have known from day one. The Iraq war was never about either WMDs or terrorism. This is leading people to believe that it was about regime change, even if that was not sustainable as a reason to put before the UN. The truth is that it was not even about regime change. Even Obama has distanced himself from the Iraq adventure by calling it the wrong war.
The fact that both the President of the US and the Prime Minister of the UK lied about the real reasons not only to their public but also to their colleagues and twisted the arms of their legal advisers to support these trumped up reasons lays bare how these institutions operate.
It calls into question the stated reasons for the attack on Afghanistan and it's continued occupation, it calls into question the entire concept of the "war on terror" and it smears the mainstream media of these counties with toeing the Government line rather than questioning it. Bush and Blair deserve to be convicted as war criminals and that may never happen but the Institution of the President of the US has suffered untold damage. The call to others to follow the political system of the US rings hollow and in fact encourages people looking for a model to look elsewhere.
In Europe, France and Germany stand out for having opposed the reasons and timing of the Iraq war and Britain stands exposed for being " a poodle". The type of inquiry being held in the UK cannot be held in the US. The US has a greater intolerance for the sexual escapades of their leaders and lawmakers then it does for their political ethics. This is a problem not just for the US but for the whole world as the US has the ability to impact the rest of the world for better or for worse. The question is being asked ( not in Davos) whether the Leadership of the US is doing more harm to the world then it is doing good. As long as there is no alternative the world may choose to live with a seriously flawed leader but clearly there is now a vacuum waiting to be filled.
Khusro