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Fischer warns U.S. not to act alone against nations like Iraq
BERLIN The German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, warned the Bush
administration Tuesday not to treat its allies like satellite states in some
new empire or move unilaterally against states like Iraq. Fischer thereby
added a prominent German voice to a new wave of anxious continental
criticism of Washington's post-Afghanistan foreign policy.
.
Fischer, a Green with a strong pro-American reputation, joined his French
counterpart, Hubert Vedrine, in slamming the "simplistic" language of
President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address, in which he
described an "axis of evil" made up of Iran, Iraq and North Korea. "The
international coalition agains terror is not the foundation to carry out
just anything against anybody, and particularly not on one's own," Fischer
said, referring to Iraq.
.
"All the European foreign ministers see it that way," he said in a long
interview with the conservative German daily Die Welt. "Because of that, the
expression 'axis of evil' does not take us further," Fischer said. "Throwing
Iran, North Korea and Iraq into one pot. Where should that lead us?"
.
The Europeans are concerned about the Bush administration's policy toward
the Middle East, which they regard as too heavily tilted toward the Israeli
prime minister, Ariel Sharon, and too dismissive of the embattled
Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. But the Europeans are most worried about
how the Bush administration will choose to prosecute the war on terrorism
after Afghanistan.
.
They are trying to influence the intense debate going on in Washington about
how to deal with or bring down President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, with the
Pentagon perceived as pressing for military action and the State Department
urging further international pressure through the United Nations to get Iraq
to agree to new inspections of its suspected biological, chemical and
nuclear weapons facilities. "A world with 6 billion people will not be led
into a peaceful future by the mightiest power alone," Fischer said.
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"I do not support anti-Americanism at all, but even with all the differences
in size and weight, alliances between free democracies should not be reduced
to following. Alliance partners are not satellites," he said, using the term
normally reserved, during the Cold War, for the east European countries
under Soviet military domination. As for Iraq, Fischer said, Saddam is
playing "a brutal, cynical game" with his population. "It is all the same to
him whether his people suffer or whether a whole generation goes to the
dogs," he said. "But it would be wrong to limit the options to the military
realm.
.
"The UN inspectors must be allowed to return to the country," he said,
adding: "The sanctions regime must be further developed so that Iraq cannot
produce or bring on line weapons of mass destruction."
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By inference, Fischer does not favor efforts to produce "regime change" in
Iraq, the way the Bush administration does. Nor do the Europeans accept that
Washington has the right to attack Iraq, as it did Afghanistan, unless there
is a clear tie between Baghdad and the Sept. 11 attacks on the United
States. When the deputy defense secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, suggested earlier
this month in Munich that Iraq presented such a clear danger to American
interests that the United States might act preemptively, Russian and
European officials warned Washington to obey international law and respect
the need for a United Nations mandate. "Our approach has been to aim at
prevention and not merely punishment," Wolfowitz said. "We are at war.
Self-defense requires prevention and sometimes preemption."
.
On Monday, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, again warned Washington
not to attack Iraq. Vedrine was the first and bluntest critic, saying last
week that Bush's approach to terrorism is "simplistic" and "reduces all the
problems in the world to the struggle against terror."
.
He said Europeans must speak out more loudly now because they face a United
States that acted "unilaterally, without consulting others, making decisions
based on its own view of the world and its own interests."
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Secretary of State Colin Powell was quick to reject Vedrine's words, saying:
"We believe in multilateralism," but "when the multilateral community does
not agree with us," Washington would not "shrink from doing that which is
right, which is in our interest, even if some of our friends disagree with
us."
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The French prime minister, Lionel Jospin, made comments similar to those of
Fischer, as did the European Union's external affairs commissioner,
Christopher Patten, who said that European leaders should speak up before
Washington went into "unilateralist overdrive."
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In an interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper, Patten said the "axis of
evil" phrase is "unhelpful," adding: "I find it hard to believe that's a
thought-through policy."
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No plan for war, Powell says
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Powell told Congress Tuesday there is no plan on Bush's desk - at the
moment - to start a war with the "axis of evil," the Associated Press
reported from Washington. "He has no plan on his desk to start a war with
any nation," Powell told the Senate Budget Committee while defending the
administration's request for $8.1 billion for the State Department and other
foreign service operations.
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