A RUDE AWAKENING
BY AMIR TAHERI
NY POST
November 4, 2004 -- OOH la la! This was the first reaction of the French elite yesterday as they learned about President Bush's re-election. Having spent much of Tuesday evening jubilating about what they believed would be a landslide win for Sen. John Kerry, the crème de la crème of chic Paris could not believe that Bush had been returned for four more years.
The European elites had spent much of Tuesday evening dreaming about how a President Kerry would ratify the Kyoto accords, sign on to the International Criminal Court, cut and run in Iraq, send flowers to Yasser Arafat and, perhaps, open a dialogue with Osama bin Laden. When it became clear that the American voters wanted none of that, the chattering classes in Europe were left speechless. One Paris TV anchor was literally struck dumb mometarily when, after hours of crowing over Kerry's victory and the American people's supposed liberation from Bushist tyranny, he had to admit that things had gone differently.
The shock felt in Europe was even greater because of the size of Bush's victory. The president won more votes than any candidate in the entire history of America. Dubya also became the first to win the presidency with a majority of the popular vote, since his father in 1988.
People like French President Jacques Chirac, whose party has won just 16 per cent of the votes in a series of recent elections, or German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose party has lost every election in the past two years, would look with envy at the clean sweep made by Bush and his Republican Party on Tuesday.
Until Tuesday, the standard excuse by many Europeans who opposed key aspects of Bush's policies was that they were only anti-Bush, not anti-American. They tried to justify that bit of sophistry with Michael Moore-esque lies about how Bush, having "stolen" the 2000 election, did not really represent the American people.
With Dubya's victory, it will no longer be possible for the Hate-America international to pose as merely anti-Bush. Their claim that Bush and his gang of Likudniks had somehow hijacked the United States has been swept away by American voters.
So, what will "old Europe" do?
To start with, not much of it is left. Schroeder has been trying hard to compensate for the crass opportunism he showed in 2003 over the liberation of Iraq. He has sent more troops to Afghanistan to help relieve American forces there, and has assumed a major role in training Iraq's new security forces with help from other NATO allies.
The new Spanish government, too, has tried to modify its initial anti-American posture by sending troops to a number of places, including Haiti, to relieve the Americans. Within the European Union only France, Belgium and Greece had been active on the anti-American front , at least until Tuesday's election.
All three governments had made a strategic choice of systematically opposing Bush policies in the hope that a Kerry administration would adopt substantial parts of their foreign policies. Yesterday, however, all three were making noises about working with the new Bush administration.
The second Bush administration should give them a chance to prove that they have changed course. A first opportunity to do so comes at next month's international conference on Iraq, to be held in Egypt. Chirac & Co. can prove their goodwill by endorsing the democratic process in Iraq and by writing off a substantial chunk of Iraq's foreign debt. Chirac should also stop backing Arafat and his old guard in their opposition to the emergence of a new and moderate Palestinian leadership.
And Chirac should be invited to review his policies on a range of other issues, including Iran's nuclear ambitions. A good part of Tehran's current defiant stance on the issue of uranium enrichment is based on the assumption that Chirac will sabotage any U.S. attempt at taking the issue to the Security Council.
The Islamic Republic is not the only member of the "Axis of Evil" to have played the Europeans against America. Syria, too, has counted on support from Paris to escape punishment for its illegal military presence in Lebanon.
Bush's massive victory strengthens the position of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who may now be persuaded to call an early general election, possibly by February, and is almost certain to win big. Another steadfast ally, Prime Minister John Howard of Australia, won a landslide victory of his own last month.
Bush's re-election is received differently in the Muslim world. Moderate and democratic forces — from Indonesia through Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq to Morocco — will be encouraged by the prospect of four more years the first U.S. administration to threaten a status quo dominated by despotic regimes. Bush's victory, however, is bad news for reactionary despotic regimes, pan-Arabists and Islamo-fascists who had prayed for a Kerry victory.
Bush now has four full years in which to implement his ambitious plan for political and economic change in the greater Middle East.
The new Bush administration will now have ample opportunity to help the Palestinians develop a new leadership and return to the peace talks. The "road map for peace" that Bush introduced two years ago was sabotaged by Arafat and, to some extent, the Europeans on the assumption that Dubya would be a one-term president.
Tuesday's message is clear: 9/11 changed America, and no one understands and represents that change better than George W. Bush.
The world will have four years in which to absorb that message. |
