America the Dangerous?

Activist and financier George Soros on the global energy crisis and why he thinks the United States has become an obstacle to a stable and just world. By Susanna Schrobsdorff Newsweek Updated: 9:41 a.m. ET June 28, 2006

June 28, 2006 - George Soros has assigned himself a daunting mission. "Changing the attitude and policies of the United States remains my top priority," he writes in the introduction to his latest book, "The Age of Fallibility" (PublicAffairs 2006). The billionaire investor is set on convincing Americans to renounce the idea of a "war on terror" because he believes that an "endless" war against an invisible enemy is counter-productive and dangerous. He argues that since the attacks of September 11, the Bush administration has suffered from a kind of infallibility complex which impedes progress and obscures reality.

While Soros has promoted political change around the world—particularly in the former Soviet Union—he hasn't yet succeeded in his quest to crack the conservative hold on American politics. He spent more than $25 million trying to unseat president Bush in 2004. Despite that defeat, the Hungarian-born philanthropist is encouraged that American public opinion has turned against the administration's policies in Iraq and says he will throw his support behind the Democrats in this fall's mid-term elections.