NEW YORK — The world's attention is now on President Barack Obama to see if he can rebuild America's democratic and moral leadership in a world that "Bush America" has weakened. After World War II, under the United States-led occupation, Germany and Japan wholeheartedly embraced America's tutelage on democratic reforms and the renouncement of jingoistic aggressions abroad.

America was rather free of war atrocities. Roosevelt-Truman's America offered an attractive example of democracy. Germany has since continued to atone for its Nazi past and crimes. German schools continue to teach new generations so that Germany will not repeat the Nazi horrors. Accordingly, Germany has become a trusted member of the new Europe.

In the Asia-Pacific, however, Japan has for some time weakened her democracy and has abandoned atonement for World War II atrocities. The government has increasingly erased them from school textbooks so that, today, few Japanese under 40 years old even know about Japan's Pacific war with the U.S. and Imperial Japan's brutal occupations of China, Korea and other Asian neighbors. Japan's Asian neighbors have become increasingly suspicious of an unrepentant Japan. This is hurting America's diplomatic effort to confront North Korea's nuclear threats.