Andrew Roberts, still apparently grooming himself as Bush’s ghost writer, has written a strange review of Fareed Zakaria’s The Post-American World for the First Post.

Most reviewers–including Geoffrey Wheatcroft in the latest issue of TAC–have stressed that, contrary to what the title might suggest, Zakaria’s outlook is not at all pessimistic about America’s future. Yet Roberts describes the book as “pretty gloomy”.

This is odd. Zakaria himself makes clear that his book “is not about the decline of America but the rise of everyone else”. He is in fact distinctly positive: he emphasizes the endurance of U.S. military might, and the lasting strength of American “soft power”. His point is that the rise of China, India, and others does not mean the end American prosperity and growth.

For Roberts, though, any hint that America’s unipolar moment has passed seems to be unwelcome. “America’s time of reckoning is still far off,” he insists.

Yet once isolationism and protectionism returns to America, the rest of us will worry about a world in which America does not wield its enormous power for good.

This is exactly what President Bush keeps talking about. Are they working from the same script?