COMMENT | When Madeline Albright met Mahathir

COMMENT | After 30-plus years serving in the US Foreign Service under 11 secretaries of state, I have strong views about all of them – who was effective and who was not.

I have mixed feelings about Madeline Albright's time as secretary of state. But here is a personal story, about when she came to Malaysia in 1997. I never could have been prouder of her at that moment.

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad took a long vacation in mid-1997. And while he was gone, the Asian financial crisis hit. When he returned to Malaysia, he was mad.

A day or two later, he addressed the Asean meeting, which was being held in Malaysia that year. He stood up and made one of the most God-awful speeches he had ever made, where he went on and on about the cruelty of a world that is ruled by one superpower. Guess who that one superpower was? America, of course.

He said that it is worse living in a world with one superpower than it was living in a world with two. He went on to talk about how even the world’s most powerful military force was defeated by little men in black pajamas. So who are they to give advice to others...