INteresting that Bush Sr. is skeptical...........I hope this article is true and I hope that Jr. listens to his father.
Bush Sr warning over unilateral Action
" Mr Bush Jr, who is said never to forget even relatively
minor slights, has alarmed analysts with the way in
which he has allowed senior Administration figures
such as Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary,
aggressively to criticise France and Germany."
From Roland Watson in Washington
timesonline.co.uk
THE first President Bush has told his son that hopes of
peace in the Middle East would be ruined if a war with
Iraq were not backed by international unity.
Drawing on his own experiences before and after the
1991 Gulf War, Mr Bush Sr said that the brief flowering
of hope for Arab-Israeli relations a decade ago would
never have happened if America had ignored the will of
the United Nations.
He also urged the President to resist his tendency to
bear grudges, advising his son to bridge the rift
between the United States, France and Germany.
"You've got to reach out to the other person. You've got
to convince them that long-term friendship should trump
short-term adversity," he said.
The former President's comments reflect unease
among the Bush family and its entourage at the way that
George W. Bush is ignoring international opinion and
overriding the institutions that his father sought to
uphold. Mr Bush Sr is a former US Ambassador to the
UN and comes from a family steeped in multi-lateralist
traditions.
Although not addressed to his son in person, the
message, in a speech at Tufts University in
Massachusetts, was unmistakeable. Mr Bush Sr even
came close to conceding that opponents of his son's
case against President Saddam Hussein, who he
himself is on record as loathing, have legitimate cause
for concern.
He said that the key question of how many weapons of
mass destruction Iraq held "could be debated". The
case against Saddam was "less clear" than in 1991,
when Mr Bush Sr led an international coalition to expel
invading Iraqi troops from Kuwait. Objectives were "a
little fuzzier today", he added.
After the Gulf War, Mr Bush Sr steered Israel and its
Arab neighbours to the Madrid conference, a stepping
stone to the historic Israeli-Palestinian Oslo accords, in
much the same way that the present President has
talked about the removal of Saddam as opening the
way to a wider peace in the region.
In an ominous warning for his son, Mr Bush Sr said that
he would have been able to achieve nothing if he had
jeopardised future relations by ignoring the UN. "The
Madrid conference would never have happened if the
international coalition that fought together in Desert
Storm had exceeded the UN mandate and gone on its
own into Baghdad after Saddam and his forces."
Also drawing on the lessons of 1991, he said that it was
imperative to mend fences with allies immediately,
rather than waiting until after a war. He had been
infuriated with the decision of King Hussein of Jordan to
side with Saddam rather than the US, but while
criticising the Jordanian leader in public and freezing
$41 million in US aid, he also passed word to King
Hussein that he understood his domestic tensions.
Mr Bush Jr, who is said never to forget even relatively
minor slights, has alarmed analysts with the way in
which he has allowed senior Administration figures
such as Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary,
aggressively to criticise France and Germany.
There are, however, signs that Mr Bush Sr's message
may be getting through.
Father and son talk regularly and it was, in part,
pressure from Mr Bush Sr's foreign policy coterie, that
helped to persuade the President to go to the UN last
September. |
