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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas M. who wrote (93608)	4/15/2003 1:59:39 AM
From: mightylakers	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Well, don't be so sure, it seems to me that not long ago invading Iraq was also considered to be impossible. Once the war starts, American people have no other choice but to support the president, that's what they say. All they need to do is to discover a story or two of how a freedom loving Syrian got his tongue, and his penis cut off by Asaad's criminal gang. And Bush will quote the man saying "I don't want food, I don't want my penis, I want my freedom".

To: Thomas M. who wrote (93608)	4/15/2003 3:29:52 AM
From: KLP	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

From the NYT for tomorrow: Americans See Clear Victory in Iraq, Poll Finds --- 73% approve of Bush's job performance By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JANET ELDER mericans overwhelmingly consider the war in Iraq a success, and a majority say the victory will stand even if Saddam Hussein remains at large or if the United States fails to unearth chemical or nuclear weapons, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll. But a majority remains opposed to a policy of pre-emptive attack like the one President Bush invoked in invading Iraq, and see the White House, emboldened by its success, as now likely to turn the nation's military might on North Korea, Syria or Iran. At home, the fall of Baghdad has fortified President Bush's political standing. The poll found that 73 percent of Americans approve of his job performance — up from 59 percent the week before the war — and that his approval rating among Democrats was 61 percent. The finding is reminiscent of the spike in popularity Mr. Bush's father enjoyed for the first few months after the Persian Gulf war of 1991. The poll, taken over the weekend, found that for the first time since 2001, a majority of Americans, 62 percent, believe that the nation is winning the war on terrorism. And there has been a sharp drop in the number of people who fear terrorist reprisal attacks in the United States because of the invasion in Iraq. The poll found that 79 percent of respondents approve of Mr. Bush's handling of Iraq, the most support Mr. Bush has received on his Iraq policy. From a political perspective, the Times/CBS News poll pointed to a number of signs, on both the domestic and foreign policy front, of the difficulties the Democratic Party faces as it tries to win the White House and Congress next year. The nation has rallied around its president and is confident about the state of the country, a not-uncommon occurrence at a time of war. But beyond Mr. Bush's approval rating, a figure that typically gyrates with changing times, the number of Americans who believe the country is heading in the right direction has jumped nearly 20 percentage points since February, to 56 percent. That measure is closely watched by pollsters as a reliable indicator of the re-election prospects of an incumbent. The Times/CBS News poll found evidence that the Democrats are not in as strong a position as they presumably would like on the issue that they believe could return them to power — the economy. Americans are exactly divided, 42 percent to 42 percent, on which party would do a better job in managing the economy. And there has been a jump of 7 percentage points since January, to 54 percent, in the number of Americans who said they had confidence in Mr. Bush's ability to make the right decisions about the economy. That sentiment was voiced even as respondents expressed concern about the decline of the economy under Mr. Bush, and even though just 46 percent said they approved of his handling of the economy. The improving view of Mr. Bush on the economy appears to be a dividend of the overall jump in Americans' perception of Mr. Bush during the war. Mr. Bush's political advisers have argued that any voter concerns about the economy would ultimately be outweighed by a perception that Mr. Bush is a strong and grounded president, created by his handling of the war in Iraq. Mr. Bush's father, at a similar point after the previous war in Iraq, also enjoyed relatively favorable marks for his management of the economy. That perception, along with his own approval rating — which was even higher than the figure enjoyed today by his son — swiftly deteriorated as images of the war were supplanted by concerns about a troubled economy. The Times/CBS News telephone poll was conducted Friday through Sunday, and involved 898 adults. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Several Democrats have suggested that Mr. Bush's standing would begin to erode if American troops were stranded in Iraq, or if the United States failed to find or kill Mr. Hussein, or find the weapons of mass destruction that Mr. Bush said was the rationale for his invasion.

To: Thomas M. who wrote (93608)	4/15/2003 3:46:34 AM
From: KLP	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

LAWRENCE EAGLEBURGER ON U.S. FOREIGN POLICY PRIORITIES Interview at the Council on Foreign Relations: June 9, 2000 Thomas: Since your brought Mr Eagleburger and Syria and Foreign Policy up.......Here's what he said June 2000 (before the election, so before Bush, before 9-11, and before Iraq War)....... LAWRENCE EAGLEBURGER ON U.S. FOREIGN POLICY PRIORITIES Interview at the Council on Foreign Relations: June 9, 2000 Walter Russell Mead: Welcome, Mr. Eagleburger. When the new administration takes office, what two central accomplishments of the current administration should be built on, and what two central failures should be addressed? Lawrence S. Eagleburger: That is the dumbest question I have ever heard in my life. May have been brilliantly written but…. Mr. Mead: Because there aren’t two accomplishments to build on? Mr. Eagleburger: You have to start picking and choosing. My point here is, and then I’ll try to answer the question, foreign policy cannot be taken in bits and pieces. What has to be done is look at it in a whole and see how in the end it comes out in terms of is it an A, B, or C. Having said that, accomplishments. First of all, the administration has been successful, though it’s not anxious to be successful, in a number of the trade issues that I think are so important- WTO, trade with China, the NAFTA agreement. I think to the degree that the administration has been, in what I would describe seriously as a foreign policy, most successful, though not anywhere near successful as I think it could have been, it is the trade issues. Certainly, I think that has to continue, and whoever wins the election, I would hope, would be intent on continuing that, although I have to tell you, as long as we’re being frank about this, Mr. Gore’s close relationships with the unions are going to make it much tougher for him to do this. A second accomplishment, I am sure there is one out there, but at the moment I cannot think of it. Mr. Mead: Korea? Mr. Eagleburger: No. Oh no. Well, again, depending on your point of view I think we have messed up Korea badly because we have let them blackmail us time after time and they get benefits from their blackmail. They keep their word for about six months, and then they go off and start it all over again. I am not at all sure it’s a success. Having said that, it is a success in the sense that this policy has kept them from going to war somewhere. No, I don’t think it’s a major achievement. Mr. Mead: What about NATO expansion? Mr. Eagleburger: Well, I am troubled there too. Not because of the administration, but on the issue itself. I started out as a strong advocate ofNATO expansion. I’ve changed my mind. Basically, what I am saying, is that I don’t want to go any further. Mr. Mead: The Baltic states should not come into NATO. Mr. Eagleburger: Oh my god, no. Not unless you want war with Russia. Well, I don’t mean war with Russia, but…. One of the things we have to remember is that as we expand the treaty, we are guaranteeing that we will defend them in case of attack, and I want you to tell me how if Russia decided to attack the Baltic states we would defend them? In other words, we’re taking on some obligations that we need to think about. Beyond which if we are not careful, we are going to totally eviscerate NATO as the sort of organization that we have had it be in the past, and I think still, with modifications, it has to be, which is an association of democratic states who are prepared to act in Europe to defend their common interests. I don’t want to see NATO become too fragmented or too weak, I guess is the way to put it. As for failures, there are so many of those again I am having trouble even sorting through…. I would almost call Korea a failure, but I could understand why you could also call it a success. Certainly, the inability of the administration to really take the good work done by Israel and the Oslo agreement, and so fourth, and make more out of it I think has been something of a failure. I think we could have done more to move things in the Middle East, and particularly our relationship with Syria has been an abysmal failure. We had to be careful of Syria so long as there was a Soviet Union that was ready to re-supply their losses when the Israelis blew them up again. Once the Soviet Union collapsed, Assad was in a much weakened position and we have never understood that, never pushed him, we’ve never tried to make him accountable for what’s been going on in Lebanon, and I think that was a failure. If I thought harder about it, I could come up with a lot more, but is that enough for now? Mr. Mead: That’s enough to get us started, I think. Is Chinese growth inevitably a threat to American interests, and what kind of relationship would you see the next administration needing to try to build with China? Mr. Eagleburger: Is Chinese growth necessarily a threat? Yes. That doesn’t mean that we can prevent it. And what it does mean is that since it could become a serious threat, we ought to be doing things now to try to avoid that consequence. That, to me, is following the policy of the Bush administration and the latter days of the Clinton administration. I am inclined to think that either candidate for President would probably not disagree too much with continuing that policy. I suspect that Bush would be more active in it. If you take a look at what they’ve said in the campaign so far, clearly Bush is out ahead on that one. But, Clinton did it well in the last year and Gore, while he probably wouldn’t be as committed as Bush, would also not want to turn the policy around. MORE:>>>>>>> foreignpolicy2000.org