Editorial
More Bush doctrine
How is that working out?
SPEAKING in front of the Knesset on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the birth of Israel, US President George W. Bush once again demonstrated just how shallow and myopic his understanding of world affairs is.
In his speech he ridiculed the idea of "negotiat[ing] with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along" and suggested that such "appeasement" would be akin to negotiating with the Nazis in 1939.
Sadly, this narrow, inflexible, pseudo-tough-guy posturing has long been the position of the Bush administration, and has remained unchanged even as the abject failure of his foreign policy misadventures becomes more apparent by the day.
In the first instance, it should be pointed out that Bush's childish insistence on dubbing this or that world leader a "radical" or an "extremist," and refusing to have anything to do with him, has proved spectacularly counter-productive. It has done nothing to resolve the US's thorny issues with countries such as Iran, North Korea, or Cuba, and the US is today farther from its goal of isolating them and containing whatever threat they might pose than it has ever been before.
In the second, merely sitting down to speak with an antagonistic world leader is merely a recognition of the fact that while two nations might have divergent values and interests, that, often, there can be an area of convergence of interests such that communication can help defuse tensions and benefit both parties as well as the world at large. Did US presidents never sit with their Soviet counterparts?
The use of the word "appeasement" to define this kind of diplomacy is the most worrisome of all the Bush administration's approach to world affairs. This is a world view that equates dialogue and discussion with weakness and unilateralism and bullying with strength. It is precisely this kind of blinkered thinking that has got the US into the fiasco in Iraq and made the world a radically less safe place than it was eight years ago.
Bush's latest comments show that he has learned nothing over the past eight years. The planet will heave a sigh of relief when he exits office next year.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments