Bush's U.N. Appeal Misses
Overseas Targets
By Jefferson Morley
washingtonpost.com Staff
Writer
Wednesday, September 24, 2003; 3:09 PM
President Bush's muted appeal to the United Nations for
help in Iraq failed to impress many commentators in the
international online media.
In India, a country that Bush hopes will contribute troops,
the speech barely made an impression. In Europe, the president's
change in tone is being welcomed, but primarily as a sign that the
world's only superpower can perhaps be reined in. Conspicuously
absent from the commentary is any support for Bush's request for
other countries to provide soldiers on the ground.
The Indian online media is barely covering Bush's speech,
much less commenting on it.
For the Hindustan
Times in New Delhi, the big news out of the U.N. meeting was
a top official's complaint that Bush did not include India on his
list of countries victimized by terrorism.
For the Times
of India, the big story was French President Jacques
Chirac's strong support for India's bid to become a permament member
of the U.N. Security Council.
In Great Britain, Germany and France, Bush's speech was
welcomed more for its change of tone than its substance. The pundits
in Europe's biggest powers see an opening, however slight, for their
countries to improve relations with the world superpower.
About the only positive reviews for Bush came from the reliably
conservative Daily
Telegraph in London.
"Far from coming cap in hand to the General Assembly, Mr.
Bush was as confident as he was when he last addressed that body a
year ago. Then, he warned it that it would become irrelevant if it
failed to meet Saddam's defiance of its resolutions. Yesterday, he
did not admonish, but left his listeners in no doubt of his
determination to prevail in Iraq and of his conviction that all
nations of good will should contribute to this endeavor," the
Telegraph's editorial writers said.
"He may yet be disappointed in some of these ambitions. But
the tone of his speech suggested he thought the worst of U.N.
obstructiveness was over."
The
Guardian editorial saw a tale of two speeches, one by Bush,
one by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.
The American president, said the leftist London daily,
showed no interest in consensus-building. Instead, he "resurrected
his old black and white view of a planet devoid of neutral ground
and divided between civilised and uncivilised. He spoke anew of
rogue states and the fear of terror weapons falling into terrorist
hands. Eyeballing the assembly, he warned that the terrorists, whom
as usual he did not name or number or define, 'should have no friend
in this chamber'. "
"Some Americans may find reassurance in this robustly
simplistic analysis. But the rest of the world will look on
uneasily, as before. Mr. Bush had an opportunity yesterday to build
bridges -- and chose instead to burnish his self-image as the
square-jawed, undaunted Captain Marvel of the fight against evil. It
was thus an opportunity lost."
In contrast, the Guardian editors said, Annan offered
"sparse, careful words . . . marinated in wisdom, his thoughts
elucidated by years of hard-won experience, setbacks, undiminished
hope and true, not feigned compassion."
"When he condemned the pre-emptive, unilateral use of
military force, he struck a blow for all who honestly value peace
and the rule of law. When he eloquently described the many threats
to global security -- poverty, disease, inequality and not only
terrorism directed against wealthier countries -- his words came
from the heart and spoke feelingly to un-numbered hearts around the
world," the editorial continued.
"Here was a real, not a pretend leader; an international
statesman, not a comic strip character reading from a
script."
German commentators are pleased because they see Germany
gaining influence when Bush seeks assistance, according to a roundup
of German newspapers done by the Deutsche
Welle (DW) radio network.
The Cologne daily Stadt-Anzeiger notes that "Bush's
advances have nothing to do with suddenly discovered sympathies for
German opposition to the Iraq war. It is Bush's weakness alone that
makes Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder strong." The German government
"must clearly formulate its vital interests -- and these are a
united Europe, a functioning United Nations and taming of the
superpower America," DW quoted the paper as saying.
The Munich daily Munchner Merkur says "America
appears to have understood the lesson in Iraq that even superior
military dominance does not justify going it alone politically.
Winning the war does not mean winning the peace and the U.S. is now
accepting the consequences."
But the paper cautioned both the Germans and the French
that they would be well advised to grasp the hand Washington has
extended. "It would seem Berlin and Paris have realized that, in the
end, the strategic common ground with America is more important,"
the paper concluded, as reported by DW.
Sudkurier, a daily based in the city of Constance,
suggested that Bush's meeting with Schroeder today "could give
Germany more room to maneuver without getting involved militarily in
Iraq. But U.S.-German relations have not healed, and that won't
change as long as the two leaders are named Bush and Schroeder."
French pundits, meanwhile, viewed Bush's speech as a chance
for France to rebuild its relationship with Washington and assert
European interests.
"The deterioration of the situation in Iraq, the Middle
East, and Afghanistan has destroyed the myth of the all-powerful
America and requires a diplomatic revival of Europe," wrote Le
Monde (in French).
"In this together, the European countries understand that
they are themselves too implicated in these regional crises to enjoy
the luxury of a discrete satisfaction with America's
difficulties."
But Jean Daniel, editor of the Nouvelle
Observateur (in French), said Europe is still not ready.
"On postwar Iraq, the positions of George W. Bush and
Jacques Chirac are cynically complementary. The American does not
want to yield to anyone, much less the U.N. and even less France,
one bit of authority over the command of the armed forces in
Baghdad. The Frenchman is satisfied to declare that he will never
send troops to Iraq and that he has hopes for the Iraqis being their
own masters. Each one accommodates the positions of the other,"
Daniel wrote. "As for the rest, they want to rehabilitate the image
of the United Nations without giving it the power. Everyone is in
agreement and nobody has any illusions."
Only the American people can redirect U.S. foreign policy,
Daniel concludes.
"As we do not yet perceive a united Europe capable of
taking over from the United States, we can only hope that the
American people will wake up, and that the crude and interventionist
utopian visions unwisely copied from Theodore Roosevelt will come to
an end. Utopian visions that, in the words of an American diplomat,
have led George W. Bush and his thinkers 'to cease being intelligent
as they become ideologues.'"
© 2003 Washingtonpost.Newsweek
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