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Excerpts
from two points of view from outside the US about last week’s political and
diplomatic victories for the Bush administration. Have a good weekend.
KWC They’re Rooting For America, Too
East Asians worry
that U.S. foreign policy will fail. Europeans worry that it will succeed Fareed Zakaria NEWSWEEK @ http://www.msnbc.com/news/833005.asp#TOP Excerpts: “East Asians’
(and Central Europeans’) history is not one of dominating but of being
dominated, by non-American imperial powers. That doesn’t mean they are enthusiastic about American
foreign policy. They have many criticisms but, in the end, accept it as being
better than the alternatives. “We’ve lived in this region with the British, the
Dutch, the Japanese, and are now watching the rise of China,” the Malaysian
politician explained. “We want
America to stay vibrant and to assist us in developing our country, but we
worry that it is going down the wrong path.” The people I spoke to all worried that a war in Iraq would
go badly, creating a chaotic postwar landscape and furthering tensions between
America and the Islamic world. In other words, they fear that
America will fail, but hope that it does succeed. … During my tour, Iraq was topic No. 1 on everybody’s mind. I could
barely find a single person who was in favor of a war. (There were some in
Singapore.) When I would make the
case for the urgent need to disarm Saddam Hussein and the great opportunity to
help Iraqis build a modern Arab state, people would listen quizzically. They would dispute the facts, my
account of America’s motives, the prospects for a better Iraq. Then finally they would get to what
really bothered them and say in exasperation, “But why do you
get to decide who gets replaced 6,000 miles away?” This is the heart of the world’s
problem with America, even for those who admire and need it. People don’t like the fact that a
single, distant country has so much power over their lives. I asked Azyumardi Azra, head of a major
university in Indonesia, whether anti-Americanism was on the rise. “Yes,” he said, “but it’s not
because of any real rise in Islamic fundamentalism. After the Bali bomb blast, our president dithered, did
nothing and then was pressured to act by Washington. Had she taken bold steps herself, people would have
applauded. But to do what the
American superpower wants, that’s humiliating.” For much of the world, what was most
heartening was not that Bush won the battle within the United Nations but that
Colin Powell won the war within the administration. “When I saw that Syria voted for the
U.N. resolution on Iraq, I was thrilled,” said Hary Tjan Silalahi, an
Indonesian scholar. “It’s not that
I care about Syria at all, but I breathed a sigh of relief that people couldn’t
look at this resolution and say it was America versus Arabs or the West versus
Islam. It makes things so much
better for us, the moderates in the Muslim world.” Because America’s policies were presented through an international
body, in cooperation with other nations, it made it possible for people
to gulp and accept our awesome power. In a sense, America faces the same challenge that Bush does, now that
he has unified control of the American government: how best to handle hegemony;
and while the Democratic Party may, one of these days, provide an external
balance to the president’s power, America’s power is likely to remain unchecked
for some time. To
retain its legitimacy, the source of genuine authority, America will need to
find an internal balance. Colin Powell's Eyebrows By Thomas L. Friedman, NYT, 11.10.02 @ http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/10/opinion/10FRIE.html
Excerpt: (opening
paragraphs) This column is about the foreign policy fallout from the
elections. But first, a
story. I was recently interviewing
a senior European diplomat when he began complaining about the Bush team's
imbalanced Mideast policy, which involves telling the truth to Palestinians — that they need a new leader — but not telling the truth to Israel — that it needs to find a secure way to
get out of the settlements. He
became so passionate that I couldn't resist asking: "What does Colin
Powell say when you tell him this?"
The diplomat then did an imitation of Mr. Powell raising his eyebrows as
if to say, " `You know what I believe, and you know I can't do anything
about it with the crazies in this administration.' " I've been thinking a lot about Colin Powell's eyebrows this
week. Let's be blunt: the
Democratic Party as a force for shaping U.S. foreign policy is out of business,
until that party undergoes regime change.
That's not healthy. You
can't have a sound foreign policy without an intelligent domestic opposition
keeping people honest. With the Dems out of business, the real opposition party on
foreign policy will now be the "De Facto
Democrats": Colin Powell,
John McCain and the British prime minister, Tony Blair. They are the only voices that, if
raised in opposition to any Bush foreign policy initiative, could restrain the
president and sway the public.
That is not true of any Democrat today. What the last election showed us is what a deep trauma of
vulnerability 9/11 etched on the American psyche. "While the Democrats failed to
articulate a broad range of policy differences with President Bush," said
David Makovsky of the Washington Institute, "their key failure was their
inability to persuade Americans — in their guts — that they were prepared to
deal with the world as it really is now." That is a world full of terrorists and rogue regimes
dedicated to our destruction and not responsive to therapy or social work.” Outgoing Mail Scanned by NAV 2002 |
