Two months before the midterm US Congressional elections of November 2006, that are seen as determinant for the continued domestic relevance and international political influence of the US President in the remaining part of his second term of office, President George W. Bush has not shied away from the resolute and controversial stance he outlined in his fifth State of the Union Address in January 2006, stressing that National Security and the “war on terror” would remain the uppermost priority of the US, with no compromise possible. This stance has guided him for the last five years and has similarly shaped America’s place in the world.
In the State of the Union speech to the joint Houses of Congress, President Bush declared that US leadership was the only way to secure peace and he stressed that America needed to respond vigorously to the challenges ahead in the 21st Century, both on the economic and security fronts. With the looming giants of China, India and Brazil on the global stage and the equally growing importance of Russia, as an energy superpower - keen to reassert Moscow’s importance in Russia’s “Near Abroad”, including notably over Ukraine, and on the international stage - President Bush argued inaction was not an option for the US, for “in a complex and challenging time, the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting, yet it ends in danger and decline”.
A parallel point for clear resolve was made in reference to Security and about the war in Iraq - despite the persistent strong and bloody resistance of the armed insurgency - that for Washington represents the frontline of a new and protracted confrontation, and that together with NATO’s engagement in Afghanistan against the resurgent Taliban, has been likened to the Cold War of the past. It has been described by US military analysts as the “Long War”, for the expected prolonged and generational character of the conflict and the effort it will require from the US and its Allies. President Bush warned that “in a time of testing, we cannot find security by abandoning our commitments and retreating within our borders. If we were to leave these vicious attackers alone, they would not leave us alone. They would simply move the battlefield to our own shores. There is no peace in retreat. And there is no honor in retreat. By allowing radical Islam to work its will - by leaving an assaulted world to fend for itself - we would signal to all that we no longer believe in our own ideals, or even in our own courage. But our enemies and our friends can be certain: The United States will not retreat from the world, and we will never surrender to evil.”
The US President has reiterated this point in no uncertain terms in June 2006, even though nearly 60 per cent of Americans thought the Iraq war was a mistake and was dragging the President’s domestic popularity to historic lows in modern US Presidential History, with ratings not seen since the worst days of the Nixon Watergate crisis. Nevertheless, with only around 36 per cent of Americans supporting his handling of US affairs and despite growing talks of impending civil war inside Iraq, George W. Bush declared defiantly to all those seeking an early US military departure, “don’t count on us leaving before the mission is complete. Don’t bet on it. Don’t bet on American politics forcing my hand, because it’s not going to happen”. The President’s steadfast position was also intended as a clear reference to the forthcoming November 2006 electoral consultation, with the forecast popular chastisement and reversal of fortunes the Republicans in Congress are widely expected to suffer at the hands of the public, as a consequence of the White House’s Iraq policy, and to the related speculation that President Bush would begin to reduce troop levels in anticipation of the electoral deadline. In effect, despite Washington’s substantial military and political investments in that country, and the rising US human toll of the engagement, the results have not been encouraging for the USA. Security in Iraq has yet to spread beyond Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, where Washington maintains the hub of its political and military control and protects the seat of the fledging Iraqi Government inside the country.
Yet even as events inside Iraq continue to be dominated by repeated large-scale atrocities against both the US occupation in support of the Iraqi Government and the Government of Prime Minister Nouri-al-Maliki and from the murderous animosity of Iraq’s ethnic factions, President Bush has reaffirmed to the national authorities in Baghdad, in situ, that Washington would not reduce its military commitment until Iraq’s security forced are able to take over, cautioning the American people against expecting an early end to Iraq’s troubles, and also against the dissenting voices raised over the matter within his own Republican party.
However, if President Bush is not retreating from the image of a steadfast leader who knows his mind that he projected in his 2004 re-election, in his second term in office Bush has sought to distance himself from the intransigent outlook of his first term. He has been keen to shift the perception of his presidency on the world stage, with a more conciliatory approach to secure the support of his allies in his vision of the world. This new strategy has even encompassed a new outlook to the thorny issue of Castro’s Cuba -based on economic rather than military tools - to contend with ongoing developments within the regime on the island and ensure a soft transition after Castro.
In the current international climate, President Bush’s message to Europe in Vienna in June 2006 that “the world needs us to work together” for the common good of the international community, on the occasion of the US-EU Summit, quite laudable if no less grandiose, was intended to dispel the ongoing anxieties raised by his conduct of international affairs. The President’s call, however, is based on two fundamental assumptions whose simplicity are only matched by their elusiveness; for both are not always tangible on the international stage – one, that there is a Europe ready and willing to work as a single cohesive bloc in the ambit of external affairs and, the other, the extent to which Europe sees America as a real and consistent partner.
In effect, the European Union still remains deeply divided when it comes to issues affecting its external projection. Over the last decades, through its incremental process of economic, social and political integration the Union from Brussels has achieved a high degree of cohesion within the bloc; but a united stance for the common interest has yet to manifest itself on issues beyond its borders and that affect the entire region – ranging from economic subsidies for agriculture to relations with regions outside the common area and to crises that impact swiftly and directly, as energy supplies, or indirectly, as migrations and refugees. In effect, a united EU voice for international issues has yet to manifest itself, witnessed not only over the continuing crisis of immigration affecting Spain and Italy, where the EU for a long time has failed to size up the importance and magnitude of the ongoing challenge, but equally clearly over the recent crisis in the Middle East in July 2006 between Israel and Lebanon - where Britain’s supportive approach towards Tel Aviv was clearly at odds with that of the rest of its EU partners, and France’s clear support for the Lebanese Government was not reciprocated elsewhere in the EU and also found little favour in Washington.
Europeans have often been uneasy about the extent of American preponderance that prevails on the international stage; this is even more so in the post-Cold War when the undisputed US superiority in the international arena - that led French analysts to describe the US as a “hyperpower”- has rapidly been equated with a disdain for the concerns of the rest of the world. The US unilateral policy over Iraq, in the face of widespread global opposition and the arbitrariness of Washington’s “war on terror” have epitomised this feeling. Furthermore, President Bush’s manifest rejection of the established norms of international legality over Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisons - where hundreds of prisoners have been detained indefinitely in a legal limbo without charges and with a degrading treatment - and the Administration’s benevolent outlook over the covert involvement of its secret services have all stoked up the ambers of an anti-Americanism that for decades has prevailed across Europe, often in a latent form and subdued by the rigours of the Cold War but never actually extinguished; at times it has emerged vociferously, as under US President Ronald Reagan in the 1980’s with his uncompromising and openly confrontational foreign policy stance of the “Evil Empire” towards the former Soviet Union.
Moreover, the European Union, in the post-Cold War, has rekindled its latent anti-Americanism as a corollary of the perception that an unquestioned closeness to the US is no longer warranted by international developments, unlike when Europe was confronted by a single and more powerful enemy. Indeed if anti-US sentiments clearly predate President George W. Bush arrival on the world stage - and undoubtedly in the eyes of the international community his entry in the White House has not improved matters - it is nowadays possible to determine where the US President is on the world stage, at any given time, merely by monitoring the verbal abuse and even violent physical manifestations that, from Europe to Asia, unfailingly precede and accompany all his visits around the globe.
In this respect, and equally quite worrying for the state of contemporary US-European relations, an international survey of national opinions across several countries, in early 2006, has revealed that more people currently express disquiet or even fears about America’s course of actions and future policies, and over its possible intentions around the world, than towards states like Iran, Syria or North Korea whose actions may pose a threats to the international community. The image of the United States under President Bush post-Iraq has therefore received an unprecedented battering from which Washington finds it difficult to recover, either in Europe or elsewhere, and that the new incumbent of the White House in 2008, whether from Bush’s own Republican Party or the Democratic Party, will find an uphill battle to reshape favourably.
Across Europe and the rest of the world, President George W. Bush stands as the most unpopular president of the post-war years. He no longer enjoys the overwhelming international and domestic popularity he commanded five years ago, following the unprovoked attack on America’s mainland, with his bold and resolute leadership in confronting the serious threat facing America or, soon after, with the defeat of the extreme Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2002. President Bush’s reaction to Hurricane Katrina in the summer 2005 in Louisiana and the surrounding states - either in limiting its impact or, especially in its aftermath, with the Administration’s confused and inefficient response in the rescue effort for thousands of America’s poorest who had lost everything - has further eroded his popularity while the subsequent slow aid and reconstruction effort has not helped him either. He is a wounded President; yet he may be down but he is certainly not out. In fact his legacy on in the domestic and international front will endure longer that many currently anticipate or expect, starting from the fact that neither Iraq nor the Middle East will regain stability overnight on the accession of Bush’s successor in the White House. America post-Bush will not be radically different from America under Bush and it will continue acting as the policeman of the world; while Bush’s lifetime appointment of Conservative judges to the US Supreme Court will influence American legislation on social issues for years to come.
As previously pointed out, from the outset of his second mandate in 2004 President Bush has sought to open a new era of cooperation and dialogue with his allies, starting with the more conciliatory tone during US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s trip to Europe. After two years in office, while not accepting that the Iraq campaign was a mistake or explicitly admitting to specific errors - stressed by the fact that, contrary to most expectations, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld continues to hold his confidence - George W. Bush has conceded that with hindsight some things could have been done differently. The President is now keener to engage the international community in addressing areas of tensions and threats to peace and stability, from Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea to the fighting on the Israeli-Lebanese border rather than dealing with them single-handedly.
Multilateral diplomacy is now given more emphasis in addressing international crises. This approach has significantly seen Washington take a backseat in the nuclear standoff with North Korea, stressing the six-party talks, involving especially China - North Korea’s closest partner - and Russia together with South Korea and Japan, to convince the regime to adopt a more responsible course of action. President Bush’s policy has been maintained even after what Washington has described as the “provocation” of Pyongyang’s missile tests with the firing of seven missiles, including a potentially long-range one, to attract the world’s attention. Washington’s strategy is not to reward Pyongyang by elevating its importance with bilateral negotiations with Pyongyang, as sought by Kim Jong il’s regime, but instead US is determined to bring in the international community to deal with the problem. Unlike over Iraq, Washington is now keen to explore all avenues before resorting to what the world would normally expect America to do, in light of its past behaviour, to quickly rely on the use of force to resolve this crisis.
In the aftermath of North Korea’s tests in the face of prior international opposition not to carry them out, notably from China - whose regional authority and influence have suffered most - Washington, in the words of a US analyst, has been reinforced in its prevailing view that “you can’t talk to the North Koreans”. It is an outlook that President Bush wants the rest of the world to share too, to prevent being accused again of acting rashly in foreign policy. A US military response to the North Korean missile crisis is not remotely envisaged, given that it would entail a very high cost in casualties and destruction for South Korea and primarily Seoul not too distant from the border, and it has also been discouraged by the US regional ally. After having been repeatedly attacked for not listening to the voice of the international community, it might now appear somewhat ironic that when a US solitary engagement could hold the key to the diffusing the growing tension in the Korean peninsula - given the specific insistence of Kim of being recognized as a valid interlocutor by Washington - President Bush has stressed that multilateral diplomacy should be pursed to address the North Korean missile crisis.
Thus, equally contrary to past form is Washington’s acceptance of the EU-led negotiations over Iran nuclear enrichment programme and Tehran stubborn refusal to comply with the demands of the international community to freeze its nuclear activities that might lead Tehran to the acquisition of nuclear weapons in few years time. President Bush is keen to exhaust all diplomatic avenues in dangerous standoff. In President Bush’s eyes, the past should now be seen as just that, as past, and the US is intent on rebuilding its relations with the Europeans on a more cooperative standpoint. As one US adviser has acknowledged in an interview to the US newsmagazine TIME, prior to the 2006 G8 Summit in St. Petersburg, for President Bush the time for “cowboy diplomacy” has now come to an end.
Nevertheless the EU has remained wary of re-engaging whole-heatedly with George W. Bush and in its approach to US-EU relations, conditioned by Washington’s forceful approach to international affairs and especially its continued military engagement in Iraq with no end in sight to the spiral of sectarian outrages and despair for its population and ever-decreasing chances of stability for the country. In recent months, most EU leaders have had to distance themselves from overtly supporting the US given the negative domestic political repercussions this attitude may incur. Evidence that friendship with Washington does not bring political capital, but rather the opposite, emerges from the strong degree of unpopularity - beyond his domestic problems - experienced by British Prime Minister Tony Blair for his continued closeness to the Bush White House and his support for the war in Iraq and similarly from the call in Italy’s political debate, following the demise of staunch pro-US Premier Silvio Berlusconi for a clear break with the past and notably with any pro-US overseas engagement.
However the consensus beyond the White House - possibly including some in the Republican Party - from the Democratic Party to the majority of the American people is that the course of international affairs is not going America’s way. Events are not responding to the confident outlook emerging from the Bush Administration with its arguments that things are inexorably, if albeit slowly, improving. To most observers the reverse is actually happening and America’s image and ability to influence events is falling sharply from Lebanon and Palestine to Iran and Afghanistan and North Korea.
Democrats also maintain that America should be more cautious about trying to democratise the Islamic world and Bush’s claims to convince many Americans. The Administration, they argue, has been unable to stop the terrorist atrocities in Iraq, while its refusal to talk to either Iran or North Korea to stop these countries’ respective industrial or military programmes, has failed in stopping both Iran from continuing on the path towards building a nuclear bomb or ending Pyongyang missile programme, putting America more at risk of nuclear weapons since September 11, 2001. There is, the Democrats contend, nowadays more terrorism around the globe rather then less and this gloomy view was recently echoed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, commenting on the course of world events on the anniversary of the 9/11, 2001 atrocities in the US and the global US response to them. In effect, in March 2006, 40 per cent of US citizens thought that the Democrats would do a better job of protecting America against acts of terrorism and military threats while 45 per cent still favoured the Republicans to perform the task better – half of what the figure was in September 2005. Nevertheless, the Republicans remain in the USA the party of national security after more than 30 years of upholding this message; at present it is unlikely that the Democrats will replace them on this issue, but they might and could well neutralise the electoral advantage the Republicans derive from this political platform.
While multilateral diplomacy is now prized by the Bush Administration also the other more controversial aspect of diplomacy, in its preventive form, remains high in Washington’s agenda to ensure that issues on the world stage are addressed before they assume adverse consequences for the security of the US or its allies. George W. Bush remains a leader who sees the world in black and white, clearly dividing it into enemies and friends, for whom the terrorist threat presently confronting the US and the international community is not unlike the threat of the past; it must therefore be confronted in a similar manner.
Thus President Bush is now dealing with what he and his closest advisors perceive as America and the free world’s monolithic enemy, Islamic extremism, relying on the tools of large-scale military warfare that previously saw US victorious in defeating the Communist enemy, despite the differences that exist between the present enemy and that of the past. The United States, according to President Bush’s own verdict, find themselves in the midst of a great ideological struggle with Islamic militants who seek to destroy freedom. As President Bush declared in September 2006, “America did not seek this global struggle, but we’re answering History’s call with confidence and a clear strategy”. Moreover, in the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush has justified his war on less tangible and more idealistic grounds, to which most Americans or indeed many across the globe would subscribe without too much argument, replacing Tyranny with Democracy.
President Bush has also sustained that in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks America has been able to prevent further terrorist acts against US interests at home and abroad, adopting unprecedented security measures from official building and national infrastructures ranging from power plants and airports to public buildings, colleges and universities and with an extension of visa requirements for national of countries previously exempted. Security remains the paramount concern of George W. Bush and he has reiterated this concern as his political platform in speeches on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US, comparing the danger posed by international terrorism to Freedom and Democracy and especially by America’s No1 enemy, Osama bin Laden to the danger that posed in an earlier era by Lenin and Hitler.
The writer Elie Wiesel in his book Night, describing the horrors of the Nazi extermination camps, when asked what the “response to Auschwitz” should be, has commented that while it is not possible to find a human “response” to the magnitude and horrors of the Final Solution for the Jewish People - for any would fail to adequately fulfil this task as it would begin to seek an explanation for what cannot be explained or to find answers for the horrors where none exist - there nevertheless exists an approach possible for current and future generations to deal with the barbarity and evil of the Third Reich, based on the notion of “responsibility” in human relationships and political affairs.
This is a concept that is essential in all political affairs and that, in effect, has already prevailed in a substantive and determinant way to address the course of international politics in the past, and not least by the United States of America. The military attack on Pearl harbour of December 1941 finally awoke the US to the looming international disaster. It not only luckily changed both America and the course of global events but also the world; whatever the motives behind the act of aggression by Japan or President Roosevelt’s immediate reaction to it, the fact remains that America, in its aftermath, finally assumed the necessary responsibility for the course of world affairs, away from a carefree and debilitating policy of isolationism on the international stage for the US itself and for the international community, and in the face of a spreading evil.
After another analogous and equally momentous act of unprovoked aggression on the US, almost exactly sixty years later, with the terrorist outrages of September 11, 2001, America has equally changed. It has once again undergone a radical transformation, typified by a notable rise in nationwide domestic anxiety and suspicion over calm and trust and also an equally momentous reappraisal of its perception of the world in which America finds itself; the acts of terror have for Washington reflected the changed the nature of international relations. It is to this change that President George W. Bush is now responding, not waiting for events to develop but reacting on their potentiality; yet in President Bush’s approach to world events the crucial concept that is lacking today from Washington’s management of international affairs is not the correct identification of the objective or of the threat but the adoption of a responsible strategy that actually addresses the issue rather than subsumes it as part of a wider and more amorphous challenge without really focusing on it. This has had the effect of leaving President Bush and the United States isolated on the international stage, with debilitating consequences both for the USA and for the stability of the international community.
