The current state of United States democracy and foreign policy makes America increasingly unable to fight the war on terror effectively. In particular, the sad state of U.S. democracy is giving countries like China and North Korea a bad example.

Former United States President Jimmy Carter is just one of several political analysts who are sounding the alarm on how American democracy has deteriorated to a level that it is no longer a model worth emulating. Early in March of this year, Inquisitr ran an article delving on former president Carter’s observation that the United States has become an oligarchy or a government by the rich.

Carter stated that the founding fathers of America envisioned a government “by the people, of the people and for the people.” Unfortunately, says Carter, this is no longer the case.

“It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and congress members.”

Does The United States Still Exist? - Foreign Policy Journal: Foreign Policy JournalDoes The United States Sti... https://t.co/JdMYq9u006 — Social Care UK (@social_care_uk) April 2, 2016

Meanwhile, Angelo M. Codevilla, a fellow of the Claremont Institute and professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University, has this to say about the state of American foreign policy, as reported in The Federalist recently.

“Vladimir Putin‘s foreign policy is more effective than the United States… Once its allies guard the Turkish border, Russia will be the unchallenged mistress of the Fertile Crescent, while the United States will have become irrelevant there.”

Codevilla is also the author of To Make And Keep Peace. He sounds the alarm bells on an American foreign policy that makes it increasingly difficult to defeat ISIS in particular.

“U.S. policy has also made ‘stability’—maintaining the territorial integrity of the region’s states—an end in itself, thus sacrificing fruitful relationships with the individual ethnic and religious groups that compose the Middle East. Having become the last defender of borders and regimes against which local peoples are rebelling, America ends up semi-allied with governments that are increasingly impotent and internally conflicted, as well as with ethnic and religious groups that are as partially committed to American objectives as the U.S. government is to theirs.”

Consistent with Carter’s point of view on the deterioration of U.S. democracy, the chief proponent of The Disclosure Project, Dr. Steven Greer laments the fact that the American economy is controlled by four major banks which also own the big oil companies. In the documentary film Sirius, Dr. Greer attempts to uncover what he calls conspiracies in the government that undermine democracy. These alleged conspiracies are purportedly behind so-called Black Ops or secret projects that not even the president of the United States is aware of.

Dr. Greer hints that the U.S. president is no longer the most powerful person in the government. He or she is more of a puppet of Big Oil interests and other lobby groups that supply political contributions to those who wish to run for the office. He draws his observations from the portents of previous presidents of the United States.

President Dwight Eisenhower warned of the growing and unchecked powers of the burgeoning United States military-industrial complex. On the other hand, President John Kennedy echoed the need for transparency or absence of hidden agendas in running the government.

Amidst the backdrop of recent criticisms regarding the sorry state of American democracy, it is easy to understand why the Supreme Leader of North Korea continues to smirk at the United States’ brand of democracy and government. The spate of criticisms may also shed light on why ISIS continues to gain support for its efforts to destabilize the so-called Free World by exporting terrorism.

Ironically, nothing much has changed with regards to the economic, military and geographic advantages of the United States. Richmond quotes Charles F. Bryan Jr., president emeritus of the Virginia Historical Society, and author of Imperfect Past: History in a New Light. From this vantage point, it would seem that presidential aspirant Donald Trump is not being politically correct when he advocates that America should be great again.

However, when the arguments of other political experts are factored in, i.e., Carter’s, Codevilla’s, and Dr. Greer’s, it would appear that there are a lot of things fundamentally wrong with today’s United States in terms of its democracy, politics and foreign policy. Whoever will take the reigns from President Barack Obama must consider it his or her sacred duty to address such issues sincerely as well as diligently.

The United States is at a critical crossroad in its history, one that does not only entail choosing who sits next on the Iron Throne of America. Ignoring the warning signs of decay in U.S. government, politics and foreign policy can be likened to a psychiatrist denying the symptoms of a sick mind.

[Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images]