George W. Bush 2 : New Edition or Reprint ?

Damian R. Sanges d’Abadie
Investigador Asociado del INCIPE
Research Associate, Centre for Defence Studies,
King’s Collage, London

“You do not change horses in the middle of an Apocalypse”
US Bumper Sticker


“It is not by closing one’s eyes to evil that one defeats it but by confronting it.”
The Golden Salamander (1950)

A Changing but resolute President

“The most impressive facet of power is restraint”, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell once declared. The final result of the November 2004 US Presidential elections, with the return of President George W. Bush to the White House for a second four-year mandate, has given renewed importance to this comment, in light of President Bush’s controversial leadership style and performance during his first term. The question whether President Bush will heed the advice of his former aide, while continuing in office, is now uppermost in the mind of the international community, in friends and foes alike. Will he opt for considered action and moderation in international affairs, or instead continue to pursue new and unpopular overseas initiatives, relying on the overwhelming military superiority of the United States in defence of his perception of America’s strategic interests?

It is a question mark about the inner workings of the Oval Office that is causing an anxious wait over the style of US foreign and defence policy during President Bush’s second mandate. His initial pronouncements - with his steadfast emphasis on Freedom and Democracy, as the new foundation of America’s vision of the world in his Inaugural Speech in January 2005 and his only mildly more moderate and pragmatic State of the Union Address, at the beginning of February - have so far failed to clarify this uncertainty for the outside world. Nevertheless an early indication of the new strategy of George W. Bush 2 on the international stage has been provided by the new US Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice with her whirlwind shuttle diplomacy in some of the US’s main European allies - Britain, Germany, Turkey, Poland, Italy, France and to the NATO Headquarters in Brussels - and to the most volatile part of the Middle East arena: Israel and the West Bank.

Dr. Rice’s trip has been intended to make effective Bush’s more internationalist pledge for his second term, soon after his return to power, to “work to deepen our transatlantic ties with the nations of Europe. I intend to visit Europe as soon as possible after my inauguration.” The US Secretary of State has meant to offer a return to more diplomatic and friendly relations with the Europeans, declaring that “it is time to turn away from the disagreements of the past. It is time to open a new chapter in our relationship, and a new chapter in our alliance”, after the serious Iraq-inspired transatlantic rift, especially with Paris, its harshest critic on the Continent. Dr. Rice’s main objective has been to provide a less confrontational context in which to mend US-EU mutual relations post-Iraq, emphasizing the importance that Europe holds for America and the related importance Washington attaches to working with NATO, given that both Europe and America cherish similar goals and are fighting for the same outcome of eliminating or containing international terrorism.

Her “olive branch diplomacy” to attempt to clarify the direction of America’s foreign and security policy has been received by her European interlocutors with cautious optimism, as a sign that Bush 2 may be different from Bush 1, with a more moderate and more multilateral approach. In effect a greater use or reliance on military force is still favoured by the US compared with an EU policy that believes in a more diplomatic discourse. European hopes are that the perceived internationalism espoused by the new drivers of the State Department could be a pointer that the strident language and uncompromising behaviour of the 1st Presidency will possibly be a thing of the past.

The electoral outcome for the race to the White House has therefore surprised most observers, commentators, political elites and public opinions not only in the US but also in a large part of the international community, including in Europe, where the uncompromising rhetoric of the US Administration with its rebuke of some allies as “old Europe” has never been full digested. Many around the world wanted Bush to lose the presidential election describing his Presidency as “the worst thing that has ever happened to America”. President Bush was savagely attacked during his campaign, not only by the Democrats but by the media at home and abroad, with epithets ranging from misguided to dangerous. The Economist magazine, for example, constantly attacked Mr Bush’s style of government and scathingly defined the closing stages of the race for the US Presidency as the unappealing choice between “an incompetent President and an incoherent challenger”. It favoured the new man as the lesser of two evils, since he could offer a new beginning for America, instead of a candidate that maybe could redeem himself in a second term.

All had expected the Democratic challenger, Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, to become the new resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the result has filled them with a sense of foreboding and doom about the future, given the confrontational record of the Bush Administration on issues that may be perceived to pose a challenge to the United States or its interests. The conclusive nature of the Presidential result was even more unexpected as memories of the 2000 debacle and protracted legal wrangle in Florida, that also involved Bush, were still fresh in everybody’s mind. Mr Bush has managed to gain 51% of the popular vote, becoming the most-voted President in US history and gaining 3,550,000 million votes more than the Democratic Party opponent for the Presidency, Senator Kerry, with his more moderate platform towards America’s allies, vowing to “bring the world back to the side of America”. A Kerry Presidency was perceived, in the US and beyond, as a fresh start away from the prevailing stalemate in international affairs, even if somewhat paradoxically a potential Kerry Presidency was not seen as an unmitigated blessing, especially by Germany’s Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, given its potential demands on Europe’s allies.

Only Russia, Japan, China, India and Australia, that had been favouring the incumbent President over his challenger hoping for his victory, openly expressed their satisfaction soon after Bush’s re-election as President. The Bush Administration had gradually engaged each of these countries in a favourable manner for their respective interests - whether over the war in Chechnya, tacitly accepting Moscow’s stance against Islamic separatist rebels by equating it with its own “war on terror” against Islamic extremists, or over greater economic engagement and trading agreements with China to ensure Beijing’s support in the global fight or with continued strong military and regional security engagements.

Worries and expectations from the global Commander-in-Chief

The sense of international bewilderment was made even greater given that George Bush’s Presidency had become intricately linked with the outcome of the war in Iraq , promising “to make America secure” and the world more peaceful and yet the situation in Iraq was far from clear. The deteriorating military and security situation and spiralling violence in Iraq post-bellum - together with a lack of a visible post-conflict stabilization strategy and a death toll for US military personnel after the official cessation of the conflict that far exceeded the total casualties incurred in the period of hostilities to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein - clearly contradicted Bush’s much-publicized “mission accomplished” Address of 1st May 2003 aboard USS Abraham Lincoln off the coast of San Diego.

Viewed from beyond US shores George Bush’s vision of the world and policy-making record in the last four years has raised increasingly alarm as the messianic zeal of a gunslinger, with a rhetoric that can only bring further instability to the international community. This feeling of apprehension for possible adventurous engagements by the US has not been dispelled but reinforced after President Bush was named “Person of the Year” by the US magazine TIME, soon after his victory, when he confidently declared that now “I’ve got all the power I need”. And indeed, after listening to Bush’s Inaugural message with its with his emphasis on the fight for Freedom and Democracy around the globe, this sense of anxiety continues to prevail. The strong anti-Bush feeling since the Iraq war has not disappeared and President Bush still provokes violent emotions at popular and political levels. His name alone is for some synonym of naked military aggression and imperial ambitions, with a desire to control areas where America has important strategic interests. An international opinion poll by the BBC, taken days before the beginning of his second mandate, revealed that the people in 18 out of 21 nations surveyed have expressed serious concerns about George W. Bush.

US relations with the EU are indeed a long way off since the time in the aftermath of 11 September 2001 when the French daily Le Monde famously declared that “today we are all Americans” in support of their wounded allies. The international respect and moral support that Washington had gained overnight, and especially at the outset of the “war on terror”, following its campaign in Afghanistan - after successfully leading an international coalition against the Taliban regime in Kabul to remove its unpleasant and destabilising presence from the region - has fast evaporated to be replaced by a catalogue of sharp criticisms and vitriolic accusations against the USA. Anti-americanism, in effect, has been the product of not one but of several considerations that have contributed to the unfavourable view of the USA. President Bush’s highly unpopular status, beyond the controversy of Iraq, was also caused by his obstinate attitude in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with an uncritical support for Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon’s hardline policies of repression of the Palestinians and Washington’s rejection of any dialogue with Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat, in sharp contrast with his predecessor President Bill Clinton and his determined efforts to obtain a lasting settlement in the region. Equally disliked was the Bush Administration’s cavalier attitude to individual freedoms post-9/11 and Washington’s desire to control post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, with its restriction of reconstruction contracts to multinationals and companies hailing from countries that had formed part of the US-led coalition in toppling the Ba’athist regime.

In effect if the unilateral American decision to invade the country and remove the regime of Saddam Hussein had been quite unpopular and not just in the Arab and Muslim worlds - where the prevailing perception was of a crusade against Islam - its aftermath had further strained relations between Washington and the rest of the world.

America’s conduct of the situation in the name of the “war on terror”, the mounting spiral of violence, the US growing disregard for human rights and the rule of law with the extra-territoriality of Guantánamo and finally the abuses of Abu Ghraib, have meant that America is no longer uppermost in the imagination of the international community.

Hostility towards America also has stemmed from the fact that the original US premise for the conflict, that had been constantly sustained in the build-up to the Iraq campaign as the rationale for taking immediate and decisive action against Baghdad, was proving increasingly hard to sustain. The initial doubtful assertion regarding the dangerous presence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) - that could, at a short notice, easily form part of an offensive operational capability in Saddam’s military strategy or also that could fall in the hands of terrorists hostile to America - and the growing evidence post-bellum that there were no WMD in Iraq, gradually acknowledged to be the product of unsubstantiated intelligence - till the announcement in December 2004 that the US was no longer looking for them and widely perceived by the international community as a tacit admission that there were no WMD in Iraq - have further eroded America’s credibility and led to the accusation that the Iraq war was a war of aggression over oil.

Under Bush’s first Presidency America’s image has suffered badly also because of his refusal to “play ball” on a series of international engagements. However George Bush’s America has never intended to “play ball” with the rest of the world or to concur to follow rigorously the rules of the international community, as evidenced by Bush’s early rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on the Environment in his first Presidency and significantly before 9/11, siding firmly on the side of US consumers and industries. President Bush did not ascribe to what, in the White House’s perception, were Kyoto’s radical conclusions, especially because compliance with the Protocol’s guidelines would have set reduction standards that the United States “was unable to withstand” as it would penalize US jobs and raise industries’ costs to the advantage of its main economic rivals - China and India, that were excluded from Kyoto’s provisions.

In effect, George W. Bush had swiftly nailed his true colours to the mast of international society when, only a few months into his office and on the eve of his first trip to Europe as President, in 2001, acknowledging that there were already policy differences between the US worldview and that of its allies - at that time Bush’s plans for a missile-defence system, US views on climate change, on genetically-modified crops and on the management of the world economy - he had pointedly declared: “I will just tell people what I think. Some will like it, and some won’t like it. But they always know that I will be willing to listen”. More recently, Mr. Bush’s dismissal of the international criminal Court, as a challenge to America’s interests and potential restraint on its actions and his curtailing of individual freedoms in fighting the “war on terror”, both at home - from entry visa and residence permits to more intrusive internal controls - and abroad, have been in line with his outlook but have reinforced this feeling of distance between the US and the international community.

Being at the helm of the world’s only superpower has therefore not conferred Mr Bush with automatic respect and unquestioned leadership status but, rather, he has been condemned as a destabilising and dangerous influence with sinister intentions. The incumbent 43rd President of the United States has mainly been criticised for his unyielding foreign policy stance and the refusal to rein in his hawkish advisers, notably Vice-President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and his Deputy Paul Wolfowitz - who significantly both remain in control of the Pentagon in spite of the reshuffle that has affected other high-level US Cabinet posts - and also Dr Rice, his former National Security Adviser and now the new Secretary of State, replacing the more amiable General Colin Powell, and finally his political strategist and long-time friend Karl Rowe, as the philosopher of the new conservative revolution and the architect of his re-election, who also still remains by his side.

The return of President Bush to the White House has also caused a significant impact and has been disconcerting for a dimensions that figured prominently throughout his campaign: his deeply-felt religious fervour with an emphasis on moral values and on a “culture of life”, aiming to ensure that “scientific advances always serve human dignity, not take advantage of some lives for the benefit of others”. In the United States, some electors, downhearted and disaffected in the immediate aftermath of the November result, have gone so far in their expression of utter dismay and rejection to declare that they could no longer envisage living under another Bush Presidency for another four years and they have manifested their feeling by undertaking a forced emigration into nearby Canada.

Nevertheless the America’s religiosity is an old and established manifestation and current reactions to Bush’s style of government, stressing God’s influence in his conduct are short-sighted. The fact that the US is a religious country or rather that it manifests a high degree of religiosity should not be seen as a surprising reality, nor is it a new phenomenon dating from the Bush Administration and the new conservative influence, that is perceived to have taken a firm grip over US affairs and policymaking, challenging America’s liberal ethos of the Clinton years and before. One needs only, after all, take a look at the most pervasive symbol of US power and influence across the world, the US dollar, to see that the US statement of faith forms an integral part of its body politic. “In God We Trust” proclaims the US currency throughout the various denominations of the US legal tender, stressing that God is closely intertwined in the US conception of the state and its dynamics, and proving that Americans do not have problem in honouring two masters at the same time. A conception of religion that is clearly absent in the European discourse by unanimous design and from long historical tradition, going back to the Seventeenth Century with the Treaty of Westphalia and one, that despite its Christian roots, Europeans have never envisaged of including in their new currency from its initial inception of the ECU or on the EURO.

Bush, the Security President

Why, then, did Kerry fail to beat such an unpopular and conservative President or, rather, why did Bush win if one the fundamental strands of his campaign, the “war on terror” with his shock and awe strategy on the frontline battleground in Iraq, was definitely not going his way? He had not put forward a coherent strategy for the crisis that would ensure security inside Iraq after disbanding the former Iraqi security forces, and neither had his arch-enemy Osama bin Laden been caught “dead or alive”. The answer is quite certainly not a singular but plural one. It lies in a combination of reasons ranging from the prevailing fear of Islamic terror stalking America, to the resurgence of moral values that Bush clearly expounded in his electoral speeches and upheld in his political platform. Possibly the simplest and most important one is that, contrary to popular and media-led opinions, George “Dubya” Bush was politically not such an unpopular President after all, at least for the domestic audience. Even if the difference between the two candidates was just over 3.5 million, over half the nation stood behind him and his message – certainly not the sign of overwhelming unpopularity.

Undoubtedly for millions of Americans Bush’s emphasis on moral values was crucial in opting to vote for him instead of Kerry, regardless of his other policies and often in spite of the fact that they disapproved of the war in Iraq and its subsequent developments. The votes from the religious right and from those that disliked the liberal road on which America was already set, and from which it could go down even further, are deemed to have deviated the election in favour of the Republican candidate; furthermore moral values could now have a determinant effect on US policymaking, especially on the domestic front, in the second term.

Unquestionably September 11, 2001, had traumatised a nation, changed the world-especially in its immediate appreciation of the new global risks and challenges - and had altered America’s view of it. The security afforded by distance, if not borders, could no longer be relied upon as a means to counter distant challenges. Thus many in America had embraced the neo-conservative vision of the world, upheld by US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld, that if America could not defeat all its enemies in the new uncertain international environment post-9/11, it had to strike at the root of challenges before these could materialise - and therefore America’s military supremacy meant that the US had a responsibility to ensure international stability and security and should resort to the use of force not only in defence of US and allies interests but should act in a pre-emptive manner to forestall any adverse developments. To a great extent, therefore, Bush’s victory was achieved because the majority of the US electorate was greatly reluctant and even averse to a change of Commander-in-Chief at a time of crisis and of open conflict for America, and the American people felt their current President best defended their interests and upheld their values.

President Bush’s popularity arises from the fact that he stands as the antidote to the current complexity of the international stage. He presents himself as an uncomplicated politician, a man of the people never far from his Texan roots and beliefs - where the fundamental values governing Mankind’s existence have not changed from the days of the Frontier. He does not wrestle with contradictions but has a clear vision of what is right and what is wrong – a straight kind of guy in the Ronald Reagan mould or like his father, former President George H., who also saw the world in a “good versus evil”
optic; he has the unflinching faith of the true believer in the righteousness of his cause. In effect Bush has been unrepentant over Iraq, declaring in interviews on the eve of his Inauguration that the election result vindicated his resolute stance and the refusal to remove Rumsfeld from his post was meant as an indication that no mistakes needed to be acknowledged or had been made in the Iraq war, either as a policy or in its conduct. President Bush is not one to worry about people’s opinions but wants do the right thing for America and for the world, who instinctively feels when action is needed and who, to borrow the contemporary slogan of a very dynamic multinational company, “just does it”; as Mr. Bush himself has said in an interview, during the Inauguration week, when there are problems in the world he is not one who leaves them to future generations but who addresses them immediately.

Many Americans, moreover, were proud of their armed forces engaged in combat in foreign lands in the struggle to export America’s most precious commodities: freedom and democracy, and consequently Kerry anti-war discourse rather than rallying them to him was actually distancing them from him. Although the war in Iraq may have been unpopular and its uncertain aftermath was imposing an increasing toll in American blood, US electors outside large conurbations - where Republicans voters predominated - went along with their President in their support of men and women fighting to make the US and the world safer, for they would rather have their professional soldiers in harm’s way, doing the job they were trained to do and willing to do, than see another 2000 innocent civilians killed in US cities in random atrocities. Nevertheless the approval ratings so far of President George W. Bush in terms of world public opinion are certainly not of unmitigated support. Mr. Bush starts his second term of office under a cloud of scepticism and it would not be an exaggeration to state that Mr. Bush has so far managed to alienate more people around the globe than he has rallied to himself.

The second round of American Presidencies is often characterized more by pragmatism than bold initiatives, when not paralysed by prolonged crises - as was the case for Nixon over Watergate, Reagan over the Iran-Contra scandal and Clinton over the Lewinsky affair and the impeachment trial. They are not spurred by the urge for re-election but by the notion of historic legacy. President Bush’s new tenure of office may also follow that trend, but equally it might be marked by an altogether different and bolder course of action, unlike that which characterised the second mandate of some of his predecessors.

From the outset, underlying President Bush’s second term strategy is the attempt to redeem himself in the eyes of a sceptical domestic and international opinion, from the unpopular and reckless image he has been stigmatised with and he has already begun this process acknowledging before his Inauguration that his language in the past, to describe the course of international events, may have been too vehement; more importantly, sending Secretary of State Rice to Europe and the Middle East has been a signal to the world that the second term would be more cooperative than the first. On the domestic front, it is undoubtedly possible that a more conservative approach may feature during Bush’s new presidency. Its focus might be on strengthening America’s values, based on the strong principles that have guided him throughout his political career, on issues concerning social dimensions and attitudes to life in an attempt to remould American society towards more traditional lines, away from the trends of past decades and not only for four years but for future generations.

Bush might challenge some of America’s established rights in the areas of individual behaviour and medical science on the still contentious and complex issue of abortion, and might oppose new directions for America, as stem-cell research and same-sex unions. There is also his most ambitious plan for a reform of the US pension system for, Bush argues, unless action is taken in the area of public finances, the next generations will have to bear an increasing financial burden. This process of change could in effect start with the forthcoming presidential nominations of the new Justices to the Supreme Court, altering the decade-old equilibrium of America’s highest legal forum. President Bush, however, will be careful not to open a contentious and polarising debate about individuals’ moral values, that could be highly divisive for the nation, by transforming all his pledges into policies. Yet while standing firm on some issues affecting his fundamental beliefs, his first priority in office will be to rebuild national unity and to regain the confidence of the Democratic electorate. It is not foreign to Mr. Bush that his start of the second mandate is on the strength of the lowest approval ratings of any new President, starting with only 50% of Americans trusting in him.

Although Mr. Bush will be very busy in his domestic social and economic agenda - having to contend with the dual challenges of a growing federal budget deficit, that steadily worsens the bloated US national debt and a large balance of payments deficit, causing excessive American imports over exports - foreign policy will figure prominently on his desk. The uncertain state of world affairs will continue to require a substantial degree of attention. With the “war on terror” and Homeland security uppermost in his perspective, President Bush’s main focus on the international stage will be to ensure that the prestige of the USA is restored and moreover that transatlantic relations will be improved, since no nation however powerful or predominant can act alone in the world or ensure its smooth functioning.

His agenda will be dominated by the ongoing situation in Iraq, where the US has a large military presence, and his overriding priority is that America’s military involvement does not turn into another Vietnam. In fact Bush following his Inauguration has swiftly reiterated his request, initially made in the wake of his re-election, to the US Congress to agree to expand the US financial contribution to the actual military deployments, with the provision of an additional $80bn to finance America’s current military operations and overseas military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. This means that the Pentagon will not significantly reduce troop levels in Iraq, raised from 138,000 to 150,000 for the security needs of Baghdad’s difficult electoral process, to less than 120,000 for all of 2005 and possibly also for 2006. According to the US Congress, military operations in Iraq are already costing $1bn a week and this financial appropriation will bring the total spent by the US, for the two wars and for US efforts against terrorism elsewhere in the world, to more than $300bn since the 11th September 2001 attacks. US expenditure in the global “war on terror” has reached nearly half of the total America spent for the entire Vietnam War.

Bush’s continued commitment to the US military effort in Iraq has been clearly manifested in his pledge accompanying the request, that “first, our troops will have whatever they need to protect themselves and complete their mission; and second, the United States will stand with the Iraqi people and against the terrorists trying desperately to block democracy and the advance of human rights”. Beyond Iraq and equally high on Washington’s foreign policy agenda will be the Middle East, with above all the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, the enormous similar challenges of Iran and North Korea in the area of nuclear proliferation and Europe.

A full agenda ahead : Europe

On Europe, President Bush understands the value of symbols; thus his decision, soon after being re-elected and announced before his Inauguration, that his first official trip of the second term would be to travel to Europe. His trip in February 2005, even if with only a limited itinerary, mainly to Brussels, the EU’s political heart - and unlike past wider trips to Europe during his first mandate - was a pointer to the EU that Washington does want a lasting rift with its leading European allies and in its pursuit of a reinvigorated foreign policy “the United States, first needs to overhaul ties with its partners and allies”. The trip’s highpoint has been a political summit of the Atlantic Alliance at the headquarters of their common security architecture, NATO, but it has crucially also included a visit to the EU’s leading institution, the European Council, where no other US President has gone before him. The subsequent addition of a brief stop-over in Germany, once the US’s staunchest European ally, but currently another of Washington’s most vociferous critics where, at the height of the Iraq crisis, the animosity had reached severe proportions - including between Bush and Schröder - with arguments over the continued validity of the transatlantic Alliance affirming that it effectively subsisted only on paper, has been intended as another proof of his willingness to soften his political stance. Furthermore Bush has also acknowledged the “new Europe”, so dear to Washington, in the brief stay on neutral ground in the Slovakian capital, Bratislava, to meet Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, to ensure the continuity of dialogue with Russia.

The Europeans are strongly are hoping on a new style of government in the second term of the Bush Presidency, on a gentler, more tolerant and less intransigent America, one that will listen to its allies. They are encouraged by the early pronouncement of Dr. Rice, that there will now be a “conversation not a monologue” between America and its Allies, especially since the President has secured his re-election and his concern is also not to be remembered as a President who divided Europe from America. For Washington it is important to regain the support of Europeans so that the US is not seen to be acting unilaterally in international affairs, especially in times of crises, in areas as the Middle East, that Washington perceives of strategic interest. President Bush and European leaders are keen to put their disagreements behind them and to stress the strong ties of friendship and mutual concerns that still unite them - from their shared love for democracy and belief in human rights and individual freedoms to their joint struggle for international security and greater human progress. US-European links in the economic field represent one of the biggest investment and trading relationships in the world.

Yet, Europe and the USA may share similar objectives but not similar outlooks on how to achieve them. In the post-Cold War environment of globalization, Europeans are no longer keen “to do” war. The European Union sees itself not as a military power but as political force that can act in emergencies and as a coalition for a peacekeeping role; on the contrary neo-conservative America has adopted a Clausevitzian view of international affairs, where diplomacy and war are two sides of the same coin and intervention is merely the continuation of politics by other means.

In this contrast of contemporary approaches to international affairs an inescapable reality should to be taken in account. If the United States’ image has fallen in Europe, Europe is also no longer the centre of attention of the USA; and, in this respect, it is important to stress an ongoing European misconception about US strategic concerns that has relevance at the outset of the second Bush mandate. Europe still believes that America, with its predominantly Anglo-Saxon composition has a prevailing Eurocentric vision of the world and, therefore, Europe’s concerns will continue to be America’s concerns. The assumption is doubly erroneous because Europe does not consider in its security equation the changing US demographic composition and the shift of America’s vision on the map of the world, centred on Asia. The incorrectness of this premise is likely to have uncomfortable implications for the EU in years ahead, not least for its development of a common foreign and security strategy, where the US presence will not be able to be counted upon as a matter-of-fact. Nevertheless this evolution is already being reflected in US domestic and foreign political processes. Washington’s attention on the international stage is already diverted from European dynamics and future flashpoints from the Middle East to Asia will continue to pull America away as the Twenty-First Century progresses.

America sees as its new horizon those countries that have openly expressed their satisfaction at Bush’s re-election. Washington under Bush, from economic to strategic reasons, has started to focus attention on the Asian continent by strengthening its political and economic relations and establishing even closer agreements from trade to security with the region. The emergence of China into an economic superpower has not passed unnoticed in Washington and the forthcoming transformation of the Chinese giant into a political superpower represents a leading concern for the US, given the weight that Beijing will have in the region and in international affairs. Therefore US strategic interests in terms of stability and security will not always equate Europe’s, apart from major issues like weapons proliferation or international terrorism that can threaten international peace and security. This reality will have direct implications for the EU because it will mean that Europeans will have to address, on their own, issues in their vicinity, that may present a challenge to their stability or that raise widespread concern, as humanitarian crises or ethnic tensions, but for which the USA will not have an immediate interest for a military involvement given the lack of strategic value.

Although Bush’s journey has been aimed at building new bridges, serious divergences still remain over the conduct of foreign affairs of the US Administration in its vision of the post-9/11world, from the Environment to global trade and notably over the potentially uncompromising approach towards regimes that Bush and Rice have singled out as “outposts of tyranny” - North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Belarus and Myanmar - and that, according to Washington, may cause a challenge to international peace and the security of neighbouring states. For President Bush the Middle East is one of his first and most urgent priorities of the second term and Democracy across the Middle East remains his paramount hope. A month prior to setting America on its military campaign in Iraq, he had described the forthcoming war as a means to promote Democracy, declaring that “a free Iraq can be a source of hope for all the Middle East. Instead of threatening its neighbours and harbouring terrorists, Iraq can be an example of progress and prosperity in a region that needs both”. In fact, the electoral exercise of January 2005, however imperfect, has been seen by Washington as a vindication of its argument and the President in his speech in February has urged the wider Middle East region, from Egypt to Saudi Arabia, to follow Iraq’s electoral example on the road to Democracy.

The Middle East

The region’s dynamics for President Bush hinge on three distinct but related dimensions: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran and Syria. Washington will no longer stand as a bystander observing from a distance the unfolding of a deteriorating situation in one of its most strategic areas. In his first term President Bush was not interested in getting involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, siding with Israel’s view that unless Palestinian violence ended and militants stopped their attacks against Israel it was not possible to enter into a dialogue. The new Bush Administration is determined to press for a lasting solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, for its importance in the wider region and Dr. Rice has shown Washington’s willingness to take an active interest with both parties. Washington has already ended its past unilateral dialogue with Tel Aviv, when the US refused to talk to the Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, and it has adopted a more conciliatory approach towards the Palestinian Authority. Therefore, while America has continued to support Israel, it has also sought to ensure that Palestinian interests are taken to account.

Arafat, during Bush 1, was constantly snubbed by Washington in unison with Sharon’s stance and in sharp contrast to the Clinton era, when both Arafat and his Israeli counterparts had the President’s direct attention. The status quo has left the Israeli-Palestinian stage open to a spiralling level of violent acts by both sides; on one side with the Palestinian intifada and the suicide bombers from radical Islamic groups in the region supporting the Palestinian cause and, on the other, with Israel’s iron-fist response of military operations inside the Occupied Territories, with selective targeting of political leaders heading groups sympathising with the Palestinians and strict controls on movements hampering the livelihood of its numerous citizens.

The Palestinian leader was seen by Washington as the stumbling bloc to the Peace Process in the implementation of the “road map” - the document that Washington sponsors together with the EU, Russia and the UN to pave the way for the eventual establishment of two independent states, Israel and Palestine, living peacefully side by side - for his refusal to condemn the violence of radical Palestinian militants groups favouring armed struggle against Israel, especially when after September 11, 2001 the violence was perceived from the Oval office in the optic of the wider “war on terror”. Yet President Bush, in his first mandate, had gone further than his predecessors by endorsing the creation of an independent Palestinian state. The death of Arafat and the smooth transition of power from Arafat to the new Head of the Palestinian Authority, Mammud Abbas, days before Bush’s inauguration, have been seized by Washington to renew its involvement in the Peace Process towards a positive outcome of the “road map” - that is already well behind its initial schedule - to move away from the state of confrontation in which the peace process has been languishing. The democratically-elected new Palestinian leader has not wasted time to mark his difference with his predecessor. He has abandoned the “armed intifada” and condemned the terrorist groups in favour of diplomacy. In this way Abbas has sought to ensure the context for a renewal of the dialogue with Israel and has signalled his intention to rein in the militant armed groups that still favour armed struggle, rejecting negotiations with Israel or Israel’s very existence.

The Bush Administration acknowledges that the evolution of the Peace Process will not be easy with possible hurdles by both sides. More reciprocal tolerance will be needed to allow for progress. For Washington, however, a window of opportunity that did not exist before has been now opened by the new Palestinian President but also by the new dynamics inside Israel. The Palestinian leader has already shown, with his early actions his seriousness to dialogue, while Premier Sharon has demonstrated his goodwill by taking the difficult but essential decision, against stiff domestic political opposition, to elaborate a plan for the gradual withdrawal from parts of the West Bank and Gaza that goes along with constant US requests to freeze new settlements in the Occupied Territories. In effect the importance of swift action has not been missed by President Abbas, and he has been keen to ensure a return to the negotiating table for the Palestinians, aware that events may overtake him if he does not act soon; and the opportunity to hold on to US sympathy, especially following the visit of Dr Rice to Ramallah, may be lost again. These developments have provided Washington with a new ground on which to press ahead with its new regional strategy for the Middle East, to try and solve one of the most protracted contemporary conflicts.

New diplomatic high stakes: Syria, Iran, North Korea

Syria, at present, is also perceived as a dimension of concern and a source of regional instability by Washington, only second to Tehran for its potential to cause significant trouble and already acting with a negative influence across the region. Syria’s sizeable armed forces pose for Washington a challenge to the region in light of its continued high state of tension with Israel, and moreover, it is the presence of 15,000 Syrian soldiers inside Lebanon, exercising a direct interference in this country’s affairs, that represents the immediate focus of anxiety for the Bush Administration. Washington’s aim is to convince Damascus to withdraw its troops to ensure that Beirut finally recovers its sovereignty and to get EU diplomatic approval in this effort to lower the tension in the region. This dimension provides a context for Washington to put into practice its newly-proclaimed multilateral vision of international affairs with Europe.

Europeans will be eager to endorse President Bush’s new impetus in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and towards Damascus, to reduce threats to international peace and security, but a similar consensus from the EU does not extend to other dimensions of US foreign policy where tensions also prevail and notably over the looming crises caused by the Iranian and North Korean nuclear developments.

Both Washington and the EU see, as a growing threat for the regional military balance, Tehran’s ongoing nuclear-related activities, officially declared to be for peaceful domestic requirements and for the country’s security needs but that may yet be directed to military purposes. While the EU is firmly opting for a diplomatic solution to try to convince Tehran not to proceed beyond internationally-agreed limits in the nuclear field, clearly excluding a military option that can destabilize the entire Middle East, the Bush Administration differs from Europe over the Iranian dynamics for although, at present, the US also favours a peaceful solution, it is nevertheless ready to resort to military force in case Iran persists on its dangerous course of action. In this respect, Bush’s willingness to attempt to diffuse the mounting crisis over Iran’s ambiguous designs, has been reflected by allowing the European Union - led by Britain, France and Germany - to conduct their negotiations to dissuade Tehran from engaging in the reprocessing of fissile material for the production of nuclear weapons but to convince it to remain firmly within the bounds of the peaceful use of nuclear energy for civilian scopes.

Washington, however, has rejected the offer of joining the EU in providing Tehran with economic incentives - that include the offer for Tehran to join the World Trade Organization - and security guarantees, to induce Iran not to go beyond the use of nuclear energy as future replacement for its falling oil resources. The benefits that trade may offer in softening Tehran’s nuclear priorities are unequivocally rejected by Washington. Relations between Washington and Tehran are still strained since the 1979 revolution not least for its virulent anti-americanism but for also the US perception of Iran’s continued support for terrorist groups across the Middle East and for Iran’s continued refusal to recognize the existence of the state of Israel. In his February 2005 Address to Congress, President Bush has branded Iran “the world’s primary state-sponsor of terror, pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve” and he has been unequivocal in his message to the Iranian people, declaring “if you stand for your liberty, America stands with you”.

The US asserts that Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme is a cover for getting nuclear weapons and Bush is resolute that this must not be allowed to happen. Washington is persuaded that, unlike past arguments regarding the possession of WMD in international politics, in Iran there is a real danger of WMD; America’s high level of anxiety is fuelled by the conviction that Iran is on the point of getting nuclear weapons and it draws support for its intelligence assessment from the work and reservations expressed by the UN’s nuclear agency, the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA), even if the latter has not yet reported any clear breach of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) - to which Tehran, as a signatory, has agreed to open its nuclear activities for international inspection. The UN’s Agency has concluded that Iran’s active nuclear programme might already be in a position, from a technological viewpoint, to carry out the process of nuclear enrichment, even if Iran’s activities have not gone beyond the stage that Tehran has officially declared. Nevertheless, for the US Administration evidence of a “smoking gun” in Iran’s WMD activities is backed by the fact that both the IAEA and reports from Iranian dissidents have highlighted that Tehran’s nuclear activities have a long history, going back at least 18 years and possibly as far back as 1985 - when Iran had possibly begun developing its nuclear-enrichment capabilities - and that Tehran had tried to conceal them for most of this period. In this perspective, Iran is suspected having resorted to the network controlled by Pakistan’s former nuclear chief, who has also been linked to illegal transfers of nuclear weapons and enrichment technology to Libya and North Korea .

If Iran pushes ahead towards reprocessing in spite of the substantial international diplomatic persuasion, then the Bush Administration is adamant that Tehran “cannot be allowed to go down that route” and the process of nuclear reprocessing will have to be curtailed prior to reaching its finality. Surgical military strikes on Iran could be the most likely outcome from Washington in line with its post-9/11 pre-emptive military strategy. Therefore, while the US has not yet given serious consideration to any military intervention, this course of action has not been entirely discounted, an outlook that has been stressed by Dr Rice when she has declared in her European trip - to the growing alarm of the EU - that “the question is simply not on the agenda - at this point in time”. Yet Iran will definitely not be another Iraq for Washington, with no massive invasion or troops on the ground and crucially the Administration has stated that there is not “a policy of regime change towards Iran”. Nevertheless, there is in Washington a steadfast resolve to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in the region and especially to forestall an even more destabilizing Israeli pre-emptive strike, already anticipated by Vice-President Cheney, for its repercussion in the Arab World.

While doubts still persist over the true extent of Iran’s nuclear development programme,
the same is not valid for North Korea, that had already raised more anxiety than Iran, for the IAEA Inspectorate, due to the secretive nature of the regime of Kim Jong Il. The announcement by Pyongyang in February 2005 that it possesses nuclear weapons, after years of consistently denying that North Korea was pursuing this goal, represent a direct challenge and even a provocation to George Bush’s leadership. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, President Bush had been unequivocal in manifesting his determination that the US “will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes and terrorists to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons” and North Korea’s regime fell within the category Bush had designated, three years earlier, as belonging an “axis of evil” in the international community.

North Korea’s entry into the nuclear club, while most unwelcome is not totally unexpected in Washington. From its exit from the NPT in January 2003 to avoid the IAEA’s inspections - and in the wake of an earlier confrontation with the US in the 1990s over its nuclear activities uncovered by the UN Agency - Pyongyang had been suspected of going ahead with the development of nuclear weapons and the regime has merely confirmed Washington’s prolonged suspicions over the true extent of its military installations and nuclear programme. North Korea had embarked on ways to obtain the necessary nuclear fuel, first with plutonium-making facilities, that Washington had unsuccessfully tried to stop by offering in return to assist the country in its severe energy requirements, and then through uranium-enrichment means. The outcome had caused Bush to break all dialogue with the regime in Pyongyang and to brand it as a danger for the international community. Thus, even before its recent confirmation to the outside the world, North Korea was already credited by the US with possessing a limited number of nuclear warheads or the necessary fuel to make them.

Significantly, prior to Pyongyang’s announcement, President Bush in his State of the Union Address had voluntarily omitted any negative references towards Kim Jong Il’s regime and had maintained a less bellicose tone towards North Korea, unlike that towards Iran - even though Bush in the past had been accusing the country of embarking on a dangerous road and had pressed it to renounce its nuclear ambition. President Bush has been careful not to stoke up what the reclusive leadership has called US “hostility” towards North Korea and interference in its affairs, and has declared that the United States was “working closely with governments in Asia to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions”.

Nevertheless, although significant, the North Korean development has caused less alarm for the moment in Washington than the potential course that events may take in the Middle East, and that remains Washington’s main focus of preoccupation in this perspective. Washington is mainly concerned in containing the regime even if a military option is not altogether discounted. President Bush will continue to put his faith in the six-nations diplomatic dialogue with Pyongyang in conjunction with Russia, China, Japan, North Korea and South Korea, equally concerned over the regional dynamics, to convince the reclusive and undemocratic regime in Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear installations and to adopt less confrontational stance. For the US there is more the risk of implosion in the regime or a collapse of the “hermit kingdom” resulting from its dire economic and social tensions, that could lead it on a reckless and desperate course of action, with a consequent large-scale population movement towards its neighbours China and South Korea, than any immediate nuclear-backed aggressive intentions by North Korea or even that North Korea’s nuclear technology and weapons might fall into terrorists’ hands.

The Strategic Panorama

Although the United States is often described and resented for being the world’s only superpower, in his second term President Bush will also have to establish a working relationship with Russia, a country that until recently was regarded as an equal to the USA in international politics and that has never acknowledged its declining status. Contrasting interests both in US and in Europe - from the US Congress to the Baltic Republics - on how to address Washington’s relations with Moscow will influence Bush’s relations with Russia. At present relations between President George W. Bush and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin are likely to remain business-like, not too friendly but neither confrontational, since beyond Washington’s continued but mild encouragement for more Democracy and less authoritarianism from the Kremlin, that provokes Moscow’s constant irritation, and disagreements, on certain issues, there are no major outstanding arguments of contention between Washington and Moscow that might raise the international temperature between them to critical levels.

President Bush will continue to seek Moscow’s ongoing support in the fight against international terrorism - in exchange for improved economic and political interactions. However relations with President Putin could find areas of contention over Russia’s expression of its continued right to an area of pre-eminent concern in its vicinity, in accordance with its superpower status on the international stage – an argument that has prevailed since the end of the division of Europe, with the eastward expansion of the EU and NATO, to encompass all of Moscow’s former satellites - as recently witnessed over Ukraine in the wake of its peaceful Orange Revolution of December 2004 for greater Democracy. Thus, beyond current differences over the interpretation of democratic freedoms, US-Russia relations maybe will experience most friction over the continued erosion of Moscow’s influence in its former regions and especially over their mutually-diverging views of the place of Ukraine in the European theatre, fuelled by Kiev’s pro-Western ambitions and aiming for close rapprochement with NATO and the EU, despite Moscow’s displeasure. Equally tensions may arise over Russia’s ties of friendship and support for regimes that Washington perceives as a danger for the international community with Moscow’s policies of arms shipments or technology transfers - missiles to Syria and nuclear fuel to Iran - that may cause regional instability.

Despite President Bush’s new rapprochement, transatlantic relations could find other areas of friction, over the continued US resistance on environmental issues but most importantly over China. The proposed European Union’s decision, led by France and Germany - China’s largest EU trading partner - to lift, on economic grounds, its ongoing embargo on arms sales and related technology to China, imposed by the international community after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, has angered Washington that is totally opposed to its removal. For Washington strategic evaluations now predominate over any human rights considerations, that were the inception of this trade restriction, despite its very substantial economic relations with Beijing. Washington has strongly urged the EU not to lift an embargo that could go against US interests given its continuous support for Taiwan against Beijing, because this could mean that in an eventual confrontation over the Taiwan Strait between the two Chinas, America could find itself in the line of fire of European weapons. On this issue European arguments have failed to convince President Bush.

In his second mandate President Bush has changed the tone and objectives of his foreign policy, away from the “axis of evil” and a specific targeting of individual countries that epitomized his first tenure, stressing a more diplomatic and far less confrontational style of external policymaking; yet George Bush will always be George Bush and he will not significantly divert from the course plotted in the first term. He will not relent in striving to ensure that the USA will look after its strategic interests, from the fight against international terror and the proliferation of WMD to the regional or wider challenges posed by failed states to global stability and he will focus on the security of its allies, but he will not look to solving all the world’s problems, with military interventions on humanitarian grounds.

President Bush’s aim is to enter History as the leader who took up the challenges of Islamic terror and who fought to defend Democracy around the world; a bold and very ambitious goal that has been criticized from its outset both at home and abroad. However the defence of Democracy is for Bush an historic objective, that will take time; a statement of ideals and purposes for the US, a long-term planning map and not an overnight strategy. It stands as Bush’s Containment Strategy for the post-9/11 world and has to be measured in decades and not single years, as happened in Japan or Germany after the Second World War and the staging of the election in Iraq for a new democratic state, however imperfect, has already been a success in itself for having taken place at all. The positive outcome of this objective cannot be gauged merely by the unfolding of short-term events or setbacks and daily casualty figures, it requires dedication and political resilience. While Bush’s past vision and methods have not garnered widespread support, his objective in Iraq was shared by the countries that agreed to side with Washington and if the Iraq gamble pays off and the beginnings of a democratic process in that country gradually emerge and is supported by the international community, then Washington’s goal of a regional nucleus of democracy in the Middle East will have succeeded. Moreover, provided that progress is also made in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Bush 2 might highlight his difference from his first presidency. In effect Washington is conscious that if the road to peace in Baghdad does not pass through Jerusalem, a positive outcome for both sides to events in the Holy Land will go a long way to ensuring that America’s current military efforts on the Euphrates will also reap political benefits and, moreover, considerably more regional and international status will accrue to Washington to implement its regional strategy for the Middle East.

Soon after Bush’s victory, outgoing Secretary of State Powell promised that in his new mandate President Bush would continue to conduct a “robust foreign policy” and that his boss was “not going to trim his sails or pull back” from what Washington perceived as its immediate challenges or risks to international peace and security and the defence of its interests. Domestically and especially on the international stage George Bush in his second term faces challenges of serious proportions. Iran and North Korea may emerge as the biggest but the Middle East and international terror will also take a substantial part of the Oval Office’s diplomatic efforts on the world stage and President Bush will have to decide quickly what he can and what he cannot tolerate. Furthermore, he is also a man in a hurry for he faces a domestic political deadline with the 2006 Congressional elections that might herald a power shift away from the Republicans in either House.

Many in the US and also America’s allies are waiting anxiously to know whether President George W. Bush will heed the dictum of his former aide for considered action and moderation in international affairs, with cooperation replacing pre-emption in the Middle East and elsewhere or if, more likely, President Bush and his Administration will be guided in the projection of US power by another maxim, of the american writer Hamilton Wright Mabie, that may prove less reassuring and more disturbing, “Don’t be afraid of opposition. Remember, a kite rises against, not with, the wind”.