Beyond the gossip, the indiscretions and the petty lies, the cables released by WikiLeaks tell a sad story. They depict the fall of the American empire, the decline of a superpower that ruled the world by dint of its military and economic supremacy. President Barack Obama emerges from the cables as a weak, flimsy leader, whose good intentions and lofty visions dissipate like dust in the wind in the face of the conservatism and stubbornness of his Middle Eastern counterparts.

The days when American ambassadors were received in world capitals as "high commissioners" are long since gone. The diplomats who wrote the WikiLeaks documents are tired bureaucrats: Nobody rises in their honor and clicks their heels when they enter a room. They spend their days listening wearily to their hosts' talking points, never reminding them who is the superpower and who the client state that needs military or financial aid from America.

The legacy of the storied secretaries of state of days gone by - John Foster Dulles, Henry Kissinger and James Baker - has long since disappeared into archives and memoirs. The America of Obama and Hillary Clinton doesn't dare pound on the table and knock heads together when its friends and rivals do as they please. It takes notes, files them and moves on.

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Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?