Good points about the UK; but that points more to the dangers of empire, doesn't it?
A few counter-points.
1) China doesn't have much choice but to buy US dollars. Their economy would collapse without a cheap Reminmbi/Yuan. They don't "own the US" in any real sense. http://www.theguardi...economics-economy China is already losing business to cheaper countries (Vietnam, etc., etc.).
2) Egypt's culture is older than China's - they're not doing so well these days... :-( Of course, China has had an amazing growth spurt the last 30-ish years. But every economy over-extends itself at some point. Their labor costs are rising; corruption is a huge problem; overbuilding in housing is a huge problem. If they have a bad recession in the next few years, there's no telling how far back they'll fall. Remember when Japan was going to rule the world economy? India has similar problems in may respects, but with a nasty border and territorial dispute to boot...
Additional progress in China and India are not inevitable. There are worrying signs of increasing stratification there, and it only takes a few people to start a revolution if things go pear shaped... While revolutions are often necessary to bring social and economic change, they do have a habit of making things worse for the masses at least (in the best cases) in the short run.
I agree that Africa has lots of promise, but who knows what the world will be like without cheap transportation fuels. :-/
3) When countries have a lot of money, for even a few decades or so, they can do their long-term prospects a lot of good. Take, maybe, Norway - http://en.wikipedia....um_Fund_of_Norway . The sandy countries could build themselves a great future with all that oil wealth, but they seem to be more interested in conspicuous consumption and religious fundamentalism in too many cases.
On the larger point, yes, the US shouldn't stomp around like it owns the world any more. And the US president shouldn't be able to blow up facilities in another country on just his say-so. I think Obama believes that as well, and that's one of the reasons why he's handling this the way he has - he wants the UN and the rest of the world to stand up and participate in enforcing its noble words about CWs. He wants a different, better world in the next 10-50 years. We'll see if his approach bears fruit or not.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.