The Issue: Same oppressors live on in wake of Sept. 11, 2001

Their View: U.S. domination makes the world order unstable

You could say that little has happened on the world stage during the five years that have passed since the terror attacks against New York and Washington.

We have the same oppressors, the same threats, the same poverty, the same old conflicts that never seem to end.

After initial humility, it was clear that the United States had an agenda it was willing to carry out on its own if needed. Multilateralism a la carte - in other words, a self-assumed right to pick and choose between international undertakings - was the guiding light. Now the world order would be reshaped; now the old structures and organizations would be sent to the garbage bin of history if they did not perform in a way that Washington expected.

Fighting terror - or the war on terrorism as Bush called it - overshadowed everything.

But a world order that is dominated by a single state becomes unstable, and the American policies have in several cases brought the world toward unsteady ground. There has been an overconfidence in military solutions. There has been a conviction that all threats can be shot down.

The terror threat remains, as does the schism that resulted from the Iraq war.

When the 10th anniversary of the terror attacks is remembered, will the United States once again be the positive and susceptible force that the world so badly needs?

- Dagens Nyheter,

Stockholm, Sweden