POLITICS-US: ‘W’ Bush Echoes Dad, Stresses Ties with Europe/Asia

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Nov 19 1999 (IPS) - Texas Governor George W. Bush, the frontrunner for the Republican Party nomination in next year’s presidential elections, said Friday that US foreign policy’s greatest priuority should be relationships with “long-time allies and looming rivals in Europe and Asia.”

In his first major foreign-policy address, which echoed many of the priorities of his father, Bush declared that “Eurasia” was “the world’s strategic heartland.”

He implicitly attacked President Bill Clinton’s policies for diverting from that central focus and weakening US ties with traditional allies there.

“All our goals in Eurasia will depend on America strengthening the alliances that sustain our influence – in Europe and East Asia and the Middle East,” he said.

Washington should also pay more attention to India without undermining its “longstanding relationship with Pakistan,” he added

Bush stressed that the biggest challenges of the Europe-Asia landmass lay with China and Russia, which he called “powers in transition,” and devoted most of his remarks to future ties with them.

“If they become America’s friends, the friendship will steady the world. But if not, the peace we seek may not be found,” he said and went on to suggest that, if elected, he would take a harder line with both countries.

In an 11-page speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, Bush made no mention of Africa and his only reference to Latin America was a brief phrase in relation to his hopes of achieving a hemispheric free-trade agreement.

He also did not mention any major global issues, such as global warming or other environmental questions, although he stressed that international financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), “should not impose austerity, bailing out bankers while impoverishing a middle class.”

Insteaad those agencies should become “more transparent and accountable” and “encourage the basics of economic growth and free markets.”

Bush said that he would “never place US troops under UN command,” and that Washington should “pay its (UN) dues – but only if the UN’s bureaucracy is reformed, and our disproportionate share of its costs is reduced.”

Bush’s speech, which was heavily previewed in the articles by friendly columnists and news accounts this week, followed one last month on his national-defence policies. In that speech, he held closely to mainstream Republican views which place the highest priority on deployment of missile defence systems.

The Texas governor, who won re-election by a huge landslide last year, has amassed a huge campaign chest of more than 40 million dollars – far more than his closest rivals to the nomination.

In recent weeks, however, Arizona Sen. John McCain, has cut into Bush’s huge lead in the public-opinion polls, particularly in New Hampshire, the site of the first major primary contest early next year.

Bush remains the favourite of the party establishment, particularly because of his ability to straddle a latent split between the more establishment, Wall Street elements who backed his father, the ex-president, and the more populist, rightwing forces who see themselves as closer to Ronald Reagan.

McCain, by contrast, is a party maverick who, for example, is a strong supporter of campaign-finance reform.

Bush, popularly known as “W” to distinguish him from his father, is widely considered a light-weight on foreign policy, particularly after an embarrassing gaffe two weeks ago on a Boston television programme when he was asked to name the leaders of Chechnya, Pakistan, India, and Taiwan. Of the four, he knew only the family name of the Taiwanese president, Lee Teng-hui.

He has surrounded himself with advisers who played key roles under Reagan and Bush senior. Among them are a former Russian expert in Bush’ NSC, Condoleezza Rice; a top aide to former secretary of state James Baker, Robert Zoellick, and four senior defence officials under Reagan and Bush: Richard Armitage, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and Dov Zakheim. Reagan’s former secretary of state, George Shultz, has also advised the candidate.

Friday’s speech appeared designed to assert his identity in foreign policy by distinguishing his views from those of Patrick Buchanan on the right, and Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, although he never mentioned either man, on the left.

Gore, favoured to be the Democratic Part’s presidential nominee, currently is trailling Bush in popularity polls.

Bush, in an implicit attack on Clinton, warned against a foreign policy based on “drift – for our nation to move from crisis to crisis like a cork in a current.

Unless a president sets his own priorities, his priorities will be set by others – by adversaries, or the crisis of the moment, live on CNN,” he said. “American policy can become random and reactive – untethered to the interests of our country.”

Instead, Bush argued for a “distinctly American internationalism” which he defined as “Idealism, without illusion. Confidence, without conceit. Realism, in the service of American ideals.”

On both China and Russia, Bush suggested he would follow a harder line, although, like Clinton, he said he supported China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

China, he said, is a “competitor, not a strategic partner,” a characterisation which Clinton had used last year. “We must deal with China without ill-will, but without illusions.”

Washington should “expand its theatre missile defences among our (Asian) allies,” which he cited as South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Australia and Thailand.

“We will help Taiwan to defend itself,” Bush said without making clear whether it would be eligible for anti-missile defences, too – a position which would evoke a predictably very angry reaction from China.

“If I am president, China will find itself respected as a great power, but in a region of strong democratic alliances,” he said. “It will be unthreatened but not unchecked.”

Bush called for a “new strategic relationship” with Russia and said he would increase US aid devoted to dismantling Russian nuclear arsenal.

Moscow itself could join US missile-defence efforts but only if it “break(s) its dangerous habit of proliferation.” At the same time, he reiterated his opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty – which the Republican-led Congress rejected last month.

Washington will continue to support political and economic reform in Russia, but, he added in a clear reference to the current violence in Chechnya, “we cannot excuse Russian brutality.”

“When Russia attacks civilians…it can no longer expect aid from international lending institutions,” Bush said.