In the late 18th century, Edward Gibbon published his enduring classic, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” Rome’s demise, he explained, “was the inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest[eventually] the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight.”

Today, the United States is edging toward a similar stage of “imperial overstretch,” as historian Paul Kennedy described it—a great power in relative decline, diverting resources from productive economic investment to unproductive wars and armaments while competitor nations devote more of their wealth to “productive investments for long-term growth.”

America, once the greatest creditor in the world, has become the world’s greatest debtor—a spendthrift nation spending beyond its means to maintain worldwide military dominance and an extravagant lifestyle, increasingly beholden to foreign creditors.

Our fate, however, is not preordained. Adversity is the engine of progress, as historian Arnold Toynbee concluded in his “Study of History,” tracing the rise and fall of world civilizations. Societies progress by responding to “challenges of special difficulty,” he claimed, “which spurs [people] to make hitherto unprecedented efforts” to survive.

But great powers can hit bottom when challenges are overwhelming or leaders lack the wisdom or moral strength to manage them.

Consider foreign relations— specifically, three hot spots in the volatile Middle East: Afghanistan, Israel and Iran. Assume that our “imperial overstretch” is central to America’s struggle to survive and thrive in our global village.

At the eye of the storm is President Obama, who sailed to victory in 2008, projecting a persona graced with the qualities to master the nation’s daunting challenges. In several addresses, Obama engaged people worldwide with a cosmopolitan diplomacy, shorn of his predecessor’s unilateralism, calling for a new era of cooperation to solve global problems.

In his Cairo address on June 4, Obama spoke of America’s own aggression in the Middle East, reaching out to people who had felt the sting of American power in many forms ranging from overthrowing governments to economic sanctions and military assaults.

By the 1990s, the Arab-Muslim world had become fertile soil for Osama bin Laden’s terrorist campaign, culminating in the 9/11 attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the symbols of American military and economic power. In response, President George W. Bush conquered and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, which, in turn, engulfed occupiers and occupied in a cauldron of violence and terrorism.

In contrast to Iraq, Afghanistan was the “good war,” targeting bin Laden’s command center harbored under Kabul’s Taliban regime. But a war launched against his al-Qaida outsiders has morphed into a Vietnam- type struggle against Afghan Taliban militants with a long history of expelling foreign invaders. Today, we are fighting on a terrain favoring suicide bombers and guerrilla ambushes, relying on a corrupt and unpopular government in Kabul, chasing elusive al-Qaida militants mostly outside of Afghanistan—and, arguably, fighting the wrong enemy. Obama’s exit strategy, beefing up American forces to strengthen Afghans to stand on their own, may be ignoring the most effective outlet from the struggle: “to make friends among enemies,” as MIT analyst Michael Semple argues.

Our best bet is a “political surge,”

exploiting the strains within the Taliban/al-Qaida alliance and leading to a settlement based on the withdrawal of U. S. forces and a Taliban commitment to neutralize or eject al-Qaida. Military force, carefully calibrated to hold the line while negotiating a truce with Taliban leaders, may be necessary. But a campaign to bust the enemy could sink America into the bloody quicksands of Afghanistan as the Russians did in the 1980s, hastening the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In the thorny struggle against terrorism, where friends and foes mix together, Obama has adopted two significant strategies: drain the swamp of anti-Americanism by addressing the legitimate grievances of the Arab-Muslim world and enlist allies to help with the Herculean struggle to stabilize the region.

It’s a formula tailor-made for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a major source of the region’s anti-Americanism. Indeed, Obama did demand a freeze on Israeli settlements en route to a Palestinian state, a clue signaling Washington’s new role as an impartial peacemaker. Stick to his guns, and Obama can siphon the air out of Hamas and Hezbollah, while undercutting bin Laden’s self-serving justifications for 9/11.

The Arab League, including 22 countries, was already on the same page, allies in waiting since 2002 for an American president to weigh in as an honest broker. Fearful of the anti-American and anti-Israeli hatreds agitating the region, Saudi King Abdullah had persuaded the league to promise permanent peace for Israel in return for its withdrawal from the occupied territory and acceptance of a Palestinian state.

Obama himself praised Abdullah’s blueprint, raising hopes for an all-out surge toward the two-state solution. Unfortunately, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, longtime opponent of Palestinian sovereignty, continued the old game, settling more Israelis in the West Bank and East Jerusalem while piously calling for renewed peace negotiations. In response, Obama merely issued a juiceless objection, forfeiting some of the good will he had cultivated in the Islamic world.

Having brushed aside his Arab would-be allies, Obama has compromised America’s war against al-Qaida terrorism further by turning Iran, a potential ally, into an enemy. Lost in the current polemics over Iran’s nuclear ambitions are the vital security interests linking the two countries. Both nations oppose al-Qaida; both fear the prospect of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling into terrorists’ hands. When Bush overthrew Saddam Hussein’s Sunni regime, Iran’s worst regional enemy, Tehran promptly recognized the American-backed Shiite regime. Iran’s soldiers supported America’s war against the Taliban/ al-Qaida forces in Afghanistan. And when Bush recklessly diverted American forces from Afghanistan to Iraq, Iranians stayed the course, investing $560 million to modernize Afghanistan’s scratch-scrabble economy.

Instead of welcoming Iran as an ally, Bush blacklisted it on his “axis-of-evil” list, reviving bitter memories dating back to 1953 when the CIA overthrew Iran’s democratic government, wreaking havoc on the Iranian people for decades.

For good reason, Obama insisted on negotiations with Tehran last October, despite heated criticism. The first president to admit Washington’s aggression in the 1953 coup, Obama has expressed hopes for Iran’s support in Afghanistan and Iraq. During his campaign for a nuclear-free world, he acknowledged his awkward situation —forbidding Iran to “pursue their nuclear weapons” while maintaining “our own stockpiles.” Nevertheless, since the negotiations failed to dissolve suspicions regarding Iran’s nuclear plans, Obama has been mobilizing other countries to tighten economic sanctions on Iran — a position that drew criticism from several analysts. Consider some of their points: Washington must address Iran’s security concerns — surrounded by three nuclear powers, under direct threats from the United States and Israel and the possibility of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal falling into terrorists’ hands; deal with the nuclear question through Obama’s campaign for a nuclear-free world; and enlist Iran into a coalition with China, Russia and India to help stabilize the region and to reinforce Pakistan’s struggle to keep her nuclear weapons from falling into al-Qaida and Taliban militants.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” says an Arab proverb. During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt joined forces with Stalin’s brutal Soviet regime to conquer Nazi Germany. While pursuing his 1972 detente policy, President Richard M. Nixon engaged Communist China, bristling with nuclear weapons, to contain Soviet expansionism. Bush’s “surge” in Iraq succeeded (partly) by recruiting Sunni terrorists to fight al-Qaida terrorists. Why not Iran against al-Qaida?

In the long run, America’s revival depends less on our wealth and power than on the wisdom to use them: in times of conflict, the wisdom to define objectives that truly serve the nation’s interests; a strong preference for diplomacy over force; and an understanding of the limits, even the boomerang effect of military force.

“Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder,” Toynbee concluded after studying the rise and fall of 22 civilizations. The idea of self-destruction was central to bin Laden’s devious strategy behind the 9/11 attacks, according to Bruce Riedel, a Middle East expert and adviser to three presidents, including Obama: to “provoke and bait” the United States into “bleeding wars” throughout the Islamic world, in order to bankrupt America as done to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Bush, hell-bent to “kick some ass,” as an adviser recalled, swallowed the bait, sending American forces into Afghanistan, launching another war with Iraq and alienating Iran. Now, the conflagration is spreading into Pakistan.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have reached the trillion-dollar mark and rising, not to mention the enormous toll on lives. America’s battered economy, the bedrock of our power, is threatened further by bloated military budgets, consuming resources that could put millions of Americans to work rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, streamlining transit systems, developing green industries, etc. Worse yet is our antitax, free-lunch mentality — the delusion that we can wage wars and maintain living standards on borrowed dollars, surrendering our fate largely to foreign creditors like China and Japan, sliding toward that “debt explosion” that doomed the European empires the past four centuries.

In Toynbee’s perspective, America’s basic challenge is to check the “suicidal” impulses in our collective behavior and redirect our energies toward upholding the common good against special interests — a daunting task that Obama has addressed in many speeches. His performance, however, has fallen far short of his rhetoric.

The heavy criticism may be premature, considering the complexity of the problems he inherited, the fierce opposition he faced at every turn, and the progress, however modest, he has made. Obama has emerged as a world leader prodding the world community to tackle tough problems from global warming and depression to terrorism and the nuclear “Sword of Damocles” dangling over all of us.

Moreover, the president’s voice has widened our political discourse, legitimizing self-criticism when America has wronged other nations and criticizing allies when they endanger American security — the kind of critical analysis seldom heard, but fundamental for realist diplomacy.

Edward Cuddy is a professor of history at Daemen College.