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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (102137)	2/25/2005 5:47:55 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793887

Well Done, Mr. President AMERICAN FUTURE By Marc Schulman on US vs. EU The Europeans were treated to a kinder, gentler -- but as firm and committed as ever -- George Bush this week. One of my favorite words from the Kissinger era is "atmospherics." While the cordiality of our relations -- especially with the French and Germans -- undoubtedly falls short of what we've seen and read over the past four days, there's no doubt that the atmospherics have improved. Don't underestimate the importance of atmospherics. The kind words showered upon Bush by Chirac, Schroeder and others were obviously reported to their publics, not just ours. A segment of each of these publics will now start to be persuaded that Bush isn't the belligerent, gun-happy, war-loving Texas cowboy they thought he was. I've long thought that turning around the overwhelmingly negative perception of Bush in Europe would begin with the governmental elites and then filter down to the publics. I believe that this process has now begun. Those leaders that face elections in the near-term (Germany and the UK) won't risk getting too far ahead of their electorates; after the elections, the pace of reconciliation should pick up steam. It didn't hurt that Bush's trip began only three weeks after the surprisingly successful Iraqi elections were held. Those elections led to a fair number of mea culpas, both here and abroad -- by Jon Stewart of The Daily Show (here), Mark Brown in the Chicago Sun-Times (here), Richard Gwyn in the Toronto Star (here), Jeff Simmermon at And I Am Not Lying (here and here), the editor of the New York Times (here), Kurt Andersen in New York magazine (here), and Martin Kettle in The Guardian (here). While the Iraqi elections were the most important fact-on-the-ground that favorably influenced Bush's reception by European leaders, it wasn't the only one. Others included (1) democratic elections in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and the territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority (and the subsequent progress in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), and (2) the demand for free and fair elections by the Lebanese in the aftermath of former Prime Minister Hariri's assassination. Not even Chirac and Schroeder could ignore or dismiss these validations of the underlying thrust of Bush's foreign policy: to spread democracy, most importantly, in the Middle East. And, because Bush certainly knew that the French and German leaders knew he had so many arrows in his quiver, he could speak softly without fearing that his interlocuters would conclude he would never again employ America's big stick. Many a pundit has compared Bush to Reagan. Now, the comparison is even more valid: the first-term madman becomes the second-term statesman. I never thought Bush was the former; some of those who did may soon decide that he's becoming the latter. Thank you, Mr. President, for being on the right side of history.

To: LindyBill who wrote (102137)	2/25/2005 5:48:09 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793887

Annan To Assad: Get Out By Captain Ed on United Nations UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a remarkably stern and uncompromising message to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad tonight, joining the White House in calling for a complete withdrawal of Syrian troops and intelligence agents from Lebanon. Dismissing Syrian murmurings of returning to the long-dead, phased-withdrawal Taif Accord, Annan demanded that Syria completely retreat by April: Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary-general, added his voice yesterday to American calls for Syria to pull out of Lebanon. He warned the Syrians in an Arabic television interview that they would face "measures" - presumably some form of sanctions - if they did not pull their army out of Lebanon completely by April. With pressure growing every day, Waleed al-Mualem, the Syrian deputy foreign minister, committed his country to further withdrawals, but failed to make a clear commitment to complete evacuation. The new demand by Annan, who almost never operates independent of a consensus, comes as a shock to me and I suspect also to Bashar Assad. The UN hardly stands as a bastion of radical change, but the undeniable momentum of popular revolt in Beirut has grown too large to be ignored any longer. The American alliance with France on the Lebanese question must have emboldened the oft-shy Annan into attempting to get in front of history for the first time in his career. And that is Assad's problem in a nutshell. While the entire world has decried the American occupation of Iraq, we have shown our clear intention on getting the Iraqi people back on their own feet, and quickly. The Syrians have occupied Lebanon under similar rationales but have obviously meant none of it. They blew off the Taif agreement in favor of a long occupation in order to support their proxy terror network, Hezbollah, in continuing operations against their primary enemy Israel. When you're a dictator, especially one with a seat on the Secuity Council, having Annan square off against you is almost exactly analogous to Barry Goldwater telling Richard Nixon that no one's buying the burglar story. Assad would do well to listen and retire quietly, and quickly, before the next shoe drops.