But the hand of friendship has also been extended by Iran, a star member of George Bush's "axis of evil". Even North Korea has expressed sympathy. Fidel Castro held a minute of silence to honour the victims and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez offered assistance and cheap oil - though he was rebuffed after calling the president "a cowboy". Suffering in New Orleans, Mississippi and Alabama has moved many far and wide, even if common humanity and solidarity have mixed with political calculation.
If some foreigners see the US as a friend in need, very many others, like many angry Americans, have focused on the ugly reality exposed by the hurricane: that its main victims are black and poor and have been left in conditions more familiar from the worst scenes of third world deprivation than from the richest country on earth. The slow and chaotic response to the emergency, accompanied by bitter recriminations, has highlighted the immense gap between what the French call American "hyperpower" and the government's ability to cope with this unprecedented catastrophe. Black looters being shot by white cops in Louisiana conjure up scenes from Baghdad. And from there it is only a short step to the thought that an administration that has spent billions on a disastrous war in Iraq seems utterly incapable of protecting its own most vulnerable citizens.
It is not news that the US is unpopular, especially in the Muslim world, where some have crowed at its misfortune. Indeed, security experts fear that the mass destruction and the breakdown of law and order may encourage new terrorist attacks. Some conservatives detect schadenfreude from Europeans too - who are shown by a new poll to mistrust the US because of the Middle East, global warming and many other issues, despite Mr Bush's post-Iraq charm offensive. Others complain that aid has not been more forthcoming after a generous US response to the Asian tsunami. Sympathy for the plight of ordinary Americans is one thing. But their president and his policies are different matters.
