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Bush’s remarks on how to handle America’s enemies sparks off election furore
May 16, 2008
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Republican President George W. Bush has set off a furious debate in the US presidential race with remarks implying that the Democrats want to appease terrorists.
He was speaking at the 60th anniversary celebration of Israel’s independence held in the Knesset in Jerusalem.
Mr Bush said that “some seem to believe that the US should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals.
The Democrats have hit back strongly. Front runner Barack Obama has said George Bush knows that he, Obama has never supported engagement with terrorists.
So why is George W.Bush choosing to embroil himself in the presidential run up to the White House?
A question Loretta Foo put to Brad Glosserman, Executive Director of the Pacific Forum, CSIS in Hawaii.
BG: I would say that what the president is doing is making a statement in regard to a foreign policy position that he believes in quite strongly. Let’s be clear the idea that somehow or other what he said was a campaign ploy is definitely off the mark. The President genuinely believes that the choices the US faces and that many nations in the world today face is one of good and evil. That’s a very bright and simple line that divides the two and there are terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas that are on the other side and that to talk to them is in fact, as he puts it, appeasement. He had exactly the right audience to make that particular point when he was speaking to the Knesset. So I would say that he was making what he said is a principled declaration of his foreign policy that just happened to have campaign overtones.
But since this particular topic has come up and given that Senator Barack Obama is looking to debate with Republican candidate John McCain, how does this issue play out in the sphere of the American public?
BG: It has to, as I think a key question here is how precisely the US engages with countries with which it has profound disagreements. What I think one can easily find curiously enough is that the President has labeled North Korea as part of an Axis of Evil, yet at the same time, seems to be very comfortable and prepared to proceed with negotiations with it on the six party talk framework. Similarly, as someone very snarkily put it, that he probably should be firing his cabinet as Defence Secretary Gates had only said the day before that, “We need to prepare for discussions with Iran” and similarly so had Secretary of State, Condolezza Rice several times over the years so it’s not a fast and simple or facile distinction and it’s one that the President could easily believe in principle but at the same time, I think it’s not a particularly stable or productive basis for making foreign policy.
Senator John McCain of course, jumped into the fray on the side of President Bush but will these sort of inconsistencies in the Republican foreign policy affect his standing among the people?
BG: Inconsistencies aren’t really the problem. I would suggest that Senator McCain courts here is that he aligns himself very closely with the Bush foreign policy and if you look at most of the opinion polls, what the American people seek is a break. The senator runs a very, very serious risk in being seen as far too much a continuation of the current administration and that may alienate many voters. Senator McCain I think believes again in certain Manichean opposites (that there is good and evil), you need to be very careful in how we deal with evil but at the same time, he’s demonstrated a type of pragmatism in his career that shows that he might not be as black and white as President Bush has been.
Speaking of pragmatism, would you think that Democrat Barack Obama is living in a fantasy world as probably some Republicans might put it, with his stand on foreign policy that they should have engagement with the so-called enemies of America?
BG: Absolutely not. I think it’s been clear that the US has in its entire history, particularly in the last 60 years when it has been one of the pre-eminent powers of the world, to accomplish its objectives by merely ignoring the countries with which it disagrees and pretending that they don’t exist. Obama has never said that he would talk to these countries and therefore constitutes appeasement. Somehow or rather the President seems to think if you sit down at a table with people that you disagree with, that constitutes some form of victory for them. The Senator has made it clear that what he wants to do is sit down and talk to these people and try to negotiate with them and that’s says nothing about giving in. Consequently, I would argue that seems to be a far more rational strategy and one that is far better geared towards accomplishing national interests and objectives.
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