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Politics : Foreign Policy Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (4955)	3/4/2003 8:45:25 AM
From: zonder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15987

think with the passage of time, you should probably say year and half now I feel the change in US foreign policy, at least as far as the attitude goes, was not simultaneous with 9/11. Or maybe we did not see it thus. Take a look at the article below (from today's Financial Times) where Brzezinski (Carter's National Security Adviser) says "It [Legitimacy of American leadership] has been progressively undermined in the course of the past six or seven months," he says at his offices at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The world has moved from surprise at the unilateral raising of the Iraq issue, to concern at a solitary war to general uneasiness at the priorities of the Bush administration." search.ft.com IRAQ CRISIS: 'Legitimacy of American leadership' eroded By Zbigniew Brzezinski and James Harding Financial Times; Mar 04, 2003 If he were to rank the danger posed by the three "axis of evil" countries, then Zbigniew Brzezinski has no doubts Iraq would come third. "In terms of immediacy and the scale of the threat, North Korea is number one. In terms of the long range and power potential, Iran is number one," he says, adding that, even if ranked by the tyranny of their leaders, Iraq's Saddam Hussein would be pipped at the post by North Korea's Kim Jong-il. But Mr Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, perhaps best known for steering the normalisation of US relations with China, is worried about more than just what he sees as the misplaced priorities of the Bush administration. "The concern I have is that our single-minded and, unfortunately, rather demagogic fixation on Iraq is undermining the credibility as well as the legitimacy of US leadership," he says. To Mr Brzezinski the "global legitimacy of American leadership" is the defining issue of the age and the measure of George W. Bush's presidency well beyond what befalls Iraq. In recent months he has seen that legitimacy eroded. "It has been progressively undermined in the course of the past six or seven months," he says at his offices at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The world has moved from surprise at the unilateral raising of the Iraq issue, to concern at a solitary war to general uneasiness at the priorities of the Bush administration." An opinion like that would not have been out of place among the millions of anti-war marchers on the streets of New York, Paris or London last month. But Mr Brzezinski - who is known in foreign policy circles as "Zbig" in the same way the current national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is referred to even by people who do not know her as "Condi" - is not likely to be found in the peacenik ranks. A couple of days before Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, headed to the UN to give his presentation on Iraq's weapons programmes on February 5, Mr Brzezinski was one of a small number of US foreign policy mandarins - Henry Kissinger was another - invited for a pre-briefing over lunch at the Pentagon with Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, Ms Rice and Mr Powell. Such continued involvement in the policy-making process means Mr Brzezinski is a rare hybrid in Washington: both opinionated and well-informed. Making a pointed contrast between the Bush administration's approaches to Pyongyang and Baghdad, Mr Brzezinski says that if US diplomacy could get a team of UN inspectors into North Korea, searching for weapons of mass destruction and running missions with U2 surveillance aircraft overhead, Washington and the world would consider it a victory. Fighting al-Qaeda is another matter. "The war on terrorism should not be conflated with the war on Iraq or North Korea," he says, adding that the US needs to "face up to the fact that the Middle East's political problems have proven to be the background and even the springboard for Middle East terrorists". Mr Brzezinski says the adminis-tration's post-Iraq policy will hinge on the nature of the war and recon-struction. "If it is very easy, then the big debate would be whether Syria or Iran is next. Some of the strategic impulse comes from the desire to create a new order in the Middle East. If it is difficult and costly, then nowhere." ------------------------------------------------------- Re "consistency in principles" - I thought it was clear that I was referring to principles re free trade, honoring international law, etc. Out of the top of my head, below is a non-exhaustive list of some inconsistent acts of the past year or so: - We are for free markets and free trade, but watch as we decide to severely limit steel imports to protect our domestic industry - We rigorously enforce international treaties we see in our benefit (WTO) and undermine others that don't have a profit for us (ICC, Kyoto) - We are the defenders of human rights but we can keep people indefinitely without charging them with anything, denying them Prisoner of War status through invention of half-baked terms like "unlawful combatants" that don't mean a thing for the Geneva Convention. - We call allies and even international councils "irrelevant" the minute they get out of line. etc etc... What did the serious consequences UN resolution 1441 threatened mean? Unlike you, I am not so sure it meant "war". In any case, I believe the UN is more than able to decide for themselves what they had meant.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (4955)	3/4/2003 9:28:23 AM
From: michael97123	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 15987

Brumar, I have been following this debate and the one on FADG. I have concluded that whether one is pro or con, the determining judgements on new american foreign policy will be viewed by historians based on the results, period--Short term results and Long term. The only thing left to do now is follow the news and pray frequently. What starts now probably will be as important and have as profound an effect as WW2. If we are successful, and i think both pro and con should be rooting for us to be, the intercine disputes with france, turkey etc. will be quickly forgotten as they will be needed in the new world order. France has political capital with the arab states and still can play an important role. Russia borders the region and will have a big say as will turkey. I am forgiving and forgetting before the fact. And if things go terribly wrong, i hope those nations will help the US as well. I am a nervous optimist at this point. mike