http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/News/Trifkovic/News&Views.htm
ChroniclesExtra! September 20, 2002
BUSH GOES MULTILATERALIST, BIEN PENSANTS REJOICE
Srdja Trifkovic
When the Guardian, Le Monde, and La Repubblica praise George W. Bush, it is
a sure sign that he is doing something seriously wrong - and last week he
did commit the greatest blunder of his presidency so far. Addressing the
General Assembly of the United Nations on September 12, the President
declared that
"the conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United
Nations, and a threat to peace. Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands
with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test, and the United
Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions
to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the
United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be
irrelevant?"
The President's new stand was reiterated in his September 14th national
radio address and at a Camp David press conference later that day: "The
U.N. will either be able to function as a peacekeeping body as we head into
the 21st century, or it will be irrelevant." This is the chance for the
United Nations to show some backbone and resolve, the President concluded,
"as we confront the true challenges of the 21st century." All of which
gives us the worst of all worlds: yet another unnecessary, and therefore
unjust war is to be "legitimized" by being waged under a Security Council
resolution.
The immediate result was to establish that there does exist something more
nauseating than the whine of assorted European and Third World talking
heads lamenting Washington's unilateralist selfishness, and it is their
chorus of praise for America's sudden willingness to subject its foreign
policy to the approval of the "international community."
Predictably, the Wall Street Journal's British equivalent, the Financial
Times, was elated, saying that Bush "proved himself a master of the art of
turning the tables on his critics" with a powerful speech that offered a
"strong rationale" for action:
"Above all, the speech cleverly emphasised that what is at stake is the
post-1945 international system itself. [Saddam's] contempt for the
international community, if it goes uncorrected, risks profoundly
undermining, perhaps fatally, the UN's credibility as the forum for
achieving global security. Bush has clearly rejected the views of
hardliners in his administration... The U.S. should be applauded for having
taken the diplomatic road. As Bush said, it is the authority of the UN
itself that is challenged. The onus is on the rest of the Security
Council-to demonstrate their commitment to helping the UN and the
international system it represents to face down the challenge to its
authority."
To remark that saving the "authority" of the United Nations is not a good
reason for war is apparently an alien notion to most Europeans regardless
of political affiliation. The nominally conservative Irish Independent thus
wrote that Bush's speech
"was noteworthy for two points, one indisputable and one highly positive.
One, UN resolutions must be enforced, and Iraq has defied them; two, Mr.
Bush wants to act through the UN. He may have only modified, not renounced,
his unilateralism. But he has made an important concession to world
opinion. That makes the U.S.-dominated world a slightly safer place."
Even the presumably "conservative" editorialist of the London Times joined
the bandwagon:
"The president deftly turned the tables on his critics. He put the
multilateralist argument for dealing with Saddam. . . The shallow
caricature of Bush as a sort of 'cowboy' will be less plausible after
yesterday's performance. He has instead offered the UN the opportunity to
share the role of sheriff with him."
The Guardian noted that "Bush has made some positive steps-rejoining UNESCO
and seeking solutions to global poverty are all commendable" and added that
taking his case against Iraq before the UN was "heartening." All that is
not enough, however:
"Blair worked hard to persuade the president to observe the diplomatic
proprieties and his efforts, in the teeth of opposition were not all in
vain. Bush is right to say that the UN's credibility will be undermined if
its resolutions are ignored… The damage may be incalculable if, in the
future, the U.S. continues to veto or block the UN actions it does not
welcome simply because they do not serve the narrow U.S. national interest.
Support for the UN's integrity cannot be selective: a la carte
multilateralism is not an option."
Across the Channel Le Monde announced that "the road to Baghdad passes
through New York" now that Mr. Bush has chosen "the multilateral look":
"On the surface the idea is to implement the resolutions asking for Iraq's
disarmament. In reality it is a way of making official Washington's new
strategy, the strategy of 'preventive war'… Its aim is to counter a virtual
threat with a specific operation. President Bush did not even bother to
give proof of the existence of Iraq's arsenal or of the collusion between
Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden. Faced with this new doctrine, Europe has
nothing to offer. What is most worrisome is not the fact that among
themselves, the Europeans had different views on Bush's Iraqi policy. What
is of concern is the total absence of strategic thinking in Europe on the
threat posed by Islamic radicalism and the dissemination of weapons of mass
destruction. If we are against preventive war, what have we to offer? If we
feel that Iraq is not today's number one danger and that to wage a war
against it is a treatment worse that the disease itself, why not say it
loud and clear?"
In Holland De Volkskrant only had one complaint: that Bush's conversion to
the correct globalist-multilateralist mindset was insufficiently
enthusiastic: "The fact that Bush is prepared to go through the UN is the
good news. The bad news is that he is not doing this very happily."
In Warsaw Rzeczpospolita wrote that "the United Nations today has perhaps a
last chance to prove that it is able to safeguard world peace and
security." Spanish La Razon praised the fact that "Bush has saved the
dignity of the UN." The leftist Madrid daily El Pa�s also commended "a
positive step forward on the part of the administration that had previously
leaned in the direction of unilateralism." In Stockholm Expressen went so
far as to assert that the world may breathe freely, since the U.S. has
chosen to seek Security Council approval. In Switzerland the Neue Z�rcher
Zeitung praised Bush's emphasis on strengthening the success and
credibility of the UN.
Even the traditionally America-bashing, old-Left Parisian daily Liberation
praised the fact that "a dose of mutilateralism has been added to the
messages of unilateral threats made during the summer." Across the Rhine
another leftist bastion, Germany's national television ARD-TV, commented
that "America may now fight the evil with the blessing of the international
community." In Cologne the Westdeutscher Rundfunk - long critical of Bush -
finally accepted his argument that "ignoring UN resolutions is totally
unacceptable." Frankfurt's Hessischer Rundfunk delighted in the fact that
"with President Bush's speech in New York, the General Assembly and the UN
Security Council have turned into the appropriate forums for the debate
over how to react to the Iraq question." The Frankfurter Allgemeine
approvingly noted that Mr. Bush "acted as someone who speaks on behalf of
the UN… and his appeal to accept the danger from Saddam is a chance for the
UN to regain lost credibility." Even the traditionalist Die Welt of Berlin
sighed with relief that Mr. Bush is not going it alone, but "in the legal
framework of the UN, approved by the UNSC": "The accusations of
unilateralism no longer remains... The United States may even act more
internationally than the model pupils of multilateralism."
We know that something is badly amiss when a French paper - in this case Le
Figaro - commends an American president in terms worthy of a Midwestern
country club geostrategist, or one of Rush's faithful listeners:
"The man is smart. . . The charges he made against Saddam are irrefutable.
Enumerating them without passion added to their intolerability. Washington
did not bring out any new proof against an Iraqi threat, but the White
House's reasoning was faultless."
Copenhagen's Berlingske Tidende went further, sounding like a loyal
Bulgarian paper praising a speech by Comrade Brezhnev three decades ago:
"Bush made it crystal clear that the 'remove Saddam project' is not about
American aggression, but the world's interests. Bush's excellent speech has
ensured that overwhelming pressure will be brought to bear on Saddam
Hussein and the partners of terror."
As the Private Eye's columnist used to say, "Pass the sickbag, Alice!"
For a breath of fresh air away from this mondialist love-fest we have to
return home, to Will Grigg, editor of The New American magazine. There is
only a handful of instances in which it is right to wage war, he says, but
when war is justified, it is mandatory: we have no choice but to fight if
our vital interests, our homes, families, freedoms, and homeland are
threatened by an aggressor. None of this applies to Iraq, and therefore
fighting it would be a wrong war. Furthermore, the Administration's case
for war against Iraq omits entirely the question of U.S. national
interests, focusing instead on the supposed necessity of enforcing the will
of the UN:
"No sane American relishes the thought of an Iraqi regime armed with
nuclear or bio-warfare weapons. But here's the question patriotic Americans
must confront: Are we willing to send our nation's sons to kill and die on
behalf of UN disarmament decrees? . . . Warfare is an unfortunate, and
probably inevitable, aspect of the fallen human condition. But Americans
should fight wars on our terms, for our reasons, through the constitutional
mechanisms provided by our Founding Fathers. The impending war on Iraq
meets none of those conditions. Americans must contact our representatives
in Congress - who control both the power of the purse and the power of the
sword - and tell them in no uncertain terms that we will not stand for any
more UN wars."
Amen.
