Viewpoint: No more hub and spokes

When US Vice-President Dick Cheney told the annual conference of the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Tuesday that Iran "will not be allowed to have nuclear weapons", he may have delighted the audience at this prime organization of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington. But Cheney revealed that he is still living in the long-gone days of the first Bush administration before September 11, 2004, when the lonely superpower still seemed omnipotent and "unilateral" was the fashionable word to describe the way that America could relate to the world.