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 Editorials | Opinions | April 2008 
Why U.S. Diplomacy is on the Ropes
 Doug Saunders - Globe and Mail
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 |  | I do not have many favourites among the Republicans. If you don't mind me saying, I prefer the Democrats... I fear that, if McCain wins, policy, in particular on Iraq or Iran, won't change considerably. And if a Democrat wins? It will change.
- Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner |  | | | |
Many Europeans would love to take one last swing at the fading U.S. president
Paris — It is one of those moments when the thick, grey robes of diplomatic politeness are whipped away to reveal the raw pink flesh of truth — a moment that has given the dying days of the Bush administration its international motto.
During his last visit to 10 Downing Street, the U.S. president tries to reassure reporters that international relations are moving along fine, that everything hasn't come crashing to a halt as the world waits for his successor to take office. "Our special relationship is still very special," he says in his distinctive twang.
But then the British prime minister replies in unusually frank language that seems to express much of the world's impatience.
"I fear that this has become a bad relationship," he tells the startled press corps. "A relationship based on the president taking exactly what he wants and casually ignoring all those things that really matter. … And a friend who bullies us is no longer a friend."
In this case, the prime minister is Hugh Grant and the president he's putting down is Billy Bob Thornton. But within the walls of the real-life 10 Downing Street, it is significant to note that this scene from a five-year-old romantic comedy has produced something of a catchphrase.
Among aides to Gordon Brown, the idea of a Love, Actually moment is a topic of conversation. Not that anyone is proposing a literal telling-off of the U.S. president (and certainly not for flirting with the prime minister's girlfriend, as in the film), but there is an idea, discussed quietly, that perhaps certain policy decisions and international actions should be held off, delayed until after the U.S. elections, lest they end up giving the Republicans an inadvertent boost.
"I think everyone's agreed that there is not going to be a literal Love, Actually moment — though there are certainly lots of people at Number 10 who would like to see that — but there is a real sense in this government that many important items on the international agenda are just going to have to wait until after Jan. 21," says Sunder Katwala, head of the Fabian Society, a venerable think tank with very close ties to the Brown administration (and keeper of a blog titled "Life after Bush").
"On one hand, there is a lack of desire to give the Republicans any kind of symbolic victory in the lead-up to the election, but there is also simply the reality that little is to be gained by starting anything now."
Around the world, Jan. 21, 2009, has become the key date in politics. Diplomats and senior officials in a half-dozen countries have told me frankly that little of any significance is going to happen until that fateful Wednesday when either Hillary Clinton, John McCain or Barack Obama is inaugurated into office.
As Craig Kennedy, president of the German Marshall Fund, told European leaders attending a forum on the post-Bush future in Brussels last month, "The transatlantic relationship has hit the pause button."
Everyone seemed to agree with Mr. Kennedy on that point. Last week's North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Bucharest and the current attempt at Middle East peace are considered the last international efforts of the eight-year Bush ascendancy. Neither seems likely to produce much, and there is little consensus on what's next.
The current push to launch an attack on Iran has, for better or worse, so far failed to attract international partners. And this week Mr. Bush announced that any troop withdrawal from Iraq will be delayed until after January. Nancy Pelosi, the leading Democrat in Congress, accused him of pushing that same pause button: "He is just dragging this out so he can put it at the doorstep of the new president."
In capitals around the world, a daily calculus is performed: When weighing any possible international initiative, is there anything to be gained in doing it while the 43rd president is still in office?
The answer, on almost everything important beyond managing crises and keeping the world economy from collapsing, is no: No point starting to negotiate a climate-change agreement that might reduce carbon emissions. No point trying to come closer to an agreement in the World Trade Organization talks. No point putting serious effort behind a resolution in the Mideast. No point working to end tensions in North Korea or Iran.
No point starting anything major while George Walker Bush is in the White House. Why start now, when there's so much to be gained by waiting for the next occupant?
It is, in this sense, a global Love, Actually moment. Few leaders or senior officials are willing to say that out loud — after all, they have to work with the still-powerful Bush administration for nine more months. But, in private, they do not hesitate and, occasionally, it gets out.
This week, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner of France, the least diplomatic of Europe's diplomats, told an interviewer on Paris's Radio 1: "I do not have many favourites among the Republicans. If you don't mind me saying, I prefer the Democrats. … I fear that, if McCain wins, policy, in particular on Iraq or Iran, won't change considerably." And if a Democrat wins? "It will change."
This seemed a radical divergence from the opinion of Mr. Kouchner's boss, the conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has embraced the Bush administration in public. But when I asked a senior official at the Quay D'Orsay, France's Foreign Ministry, this week whether Mr. Sarkozy also is awaiting the next president, he got up and shut the door before answering.
"Domestically, to be frank, as far as going forward on a major Middle East push or confronting Iran, it is just unsellable as long as the Bush administration is in the White House," he said. "As soon as they start attempting an all-out push in the Middle East, the leaders there start taking into account the lateness of this administration, the possibility that they can get a better deal out of the next one."
Better, the official said, to launch a new initiative at the beginning of the next administration. France has big plans, when it takes over the rotating presidency of the European Union this summer, to change the balance of military power by giving Europe its own army and Europeanizing the leadership of NATO. It is also one of several countries that would like to play the leading role in fixing situations in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and Africa — all things that would benefit from a fresh partnership.
"If we play this right," the official said, "we'll have some opportunities for setting the transatlantic agenda for the future."
Other European leaders have broken their silence on the post-Bush era. Javier Solana, the EU's head of foreign policy, admitted to a conference last month that Europe is doing little at the moment to help the Middle East or to resolve disputes with Russia. "Without the engagement of the United States, it's very difficult to move ahead," he said. "We don't want to wait a long period of time and to waste a year, a year and a half, two years, as we have wasted the first four years of this administration."
But beyond the sense that the whole world is on hold until Mr. Bush is gone, there is little consensus. For, as world leaders have discovered throughout history, sometimes a U.S. leader you loathe is far more valuable than one you love. And on a number of fronts — war, trade, human rights, immigration — the post-Bush world may prove to be a more difficult place.
BEST OF ENEMIES
Chairman Mao (joking): I voted for you during your election.
Richard Nixon: When the Chairman says he voted for me, he voted for the lesser of two evils.
Chairman Mao: I like rightists. People say the Republican Party is to the right. … I am comparatively happy when these people on the right come to power.
President Nixon: I think the important thing to note is that, in America, at least this time, those on the right can do what those on the left only talk about.
Mao's surprising admission, made during Mr. Nixon's 1972 visit to Beijing, represents a thesis held by many world leaders today. In Asia, there is a sense that Republicans in the White House are easier to deal with: more open to free trade, more forthright in their ambitions, more willing to play ball without asking complicated questions. The Iraq war was unpopular there, too, but there is little sense that this has frozen other relations.
While European leaders are almost unanimous in their desire to have a Democrat back in the White House — German Chancellor Angela Merkel appears to favour Hillary Clinton; Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Brown are said to prefer Barack Obama — there is an awareness even in "old Europe" that Chairman Mao's dictum still applies.
"It's not going to get any easier for the Europeans with the new administration, because Bush did a lot of things on his own, without consulting with the Europeans, and the Europeans were able to say: 'Okay, those are the Americans' problems,' " says Gerd Langguth, a former German member of Parliament and Ms. Merkel's biographer.
"But I'm sure that, no matter who the next president is, the White House is going to put more of an emphasis on multilateralism. That won't make things easier for the Europeans because they're going to have to take American demands seriously."
The change of a U.S. presidency can be a profound moment for the world. It is also often seized by international leaders as an opportunity to make a fresh start. The most dramatic example is probably the Ayatollah Khomeini's decision to wait until Republican Ronald Reagan was elected to release the 52 U.S. hostages — a decision that has been subject to endless "October surprise" conspiracy theories, but which most historians now feel was probably an instance of Chairman Mao's theory: a desire for a new beginning as an accepted and feared power.
People forget that even Mr. Bush was seized upon as a fresh start by some. This was particularly true in Latin America, where he was seen as a source of opportunity because of his fluency in Spanish, his promise of amnesty for illegal Mexican immigrants and his openness to freer trade with South America.
"Until Sept. 11, Latin American leaders saw real opportunity in the Bush administration," says Brazilian scholar Paolo Wrobel, who specializes in U.S. relations. "But after that, things became much more focused on security, and the trust was lost."
"Mexico and Chile were both on the UN Security Council at the time, and voted against the Iraq war resolution, so they got punished and isolated. Trade agreements with the U.S. have been stalled, and most governments now feel that these things will have to wait for the next president."
A TRULY NEW BEGINNING
This time around, the prospects for a new beginning are even greater, in large part because global anti-Americanism has grown so much under Mr. Bush, especially because of the Iraq war. According to the most recent Pew Global Attitudes Survey, a large-scale poll of citizens in 47 countries, a positive image of the U.S. is held by a majority in only 25 countries, and opinions of the U.S. have fallen in 26 of the 33 countries surveyed in previous polls.
Many European, African, Middle Eastern and Latin American leaders believe that a Democrat in the White House — and especially Mr. Obama — could reverse that opinion quickly, and put them in a position to benefit politically from associating themselves with this renewed popularity.
"Everybody knows there is going to be major change, so it's hard to deal with a president who's past it, who is not going to be central in the next four or eight years. You don't see the level of enthusiasm, ebullience and moral force that the relationship had in its early years," says Michael Cox, a specialist in transatlantic relations at the London School of Economics.
"And in foreign ministries, they want to see some change; they want to see a visible expression of change. And I think they want to see Obama, because they want to see the U.S. restored to some level of popularity around the world. … They're ready for a strong dose of pro-Americanism, and Obama cheers them up. He's sent a frisson around the world."
And this prospect, Mr. Cox agrees, has led many governments to consider a Love, Actually moment: "I'm sure there are very few people here who want to give the Republicans any kind of boost before the election."
This is not just true of major democracies. North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il appears to have frozen his negotiations with the U.S. in a bid for better terms, analysts say, as has President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran.
All this impatience could lead to an anti-climactic moment after Jan. 21. For one thing, the next president, however congenial and articulate he or she may be, may not be interested in the kind of relationship that many countries want.
There is a real possibility of a more isolationist United States, both in trade and military terms. For Latin Americans, Africans and Asians (to say nothing of Canadians), this could create grave economic difficulties. Campaigning in rust-belt Pennsylvania this week, both Democratic candidates spoke out aggressively against the North American free trade agreement and future trade deals with Latin America, leading foreign leaders to fear a more closed U.S. economy.
THE BIG GAMBLE
Leaders such as Mr. Brown and Mr. Sarkozy are gambling that the next administration will join them in more idealistic military projects, such as a rescue of Sudan or an Afghan approach based more on nation-building. But all three presidential candidates could retreat into a policy based strictly on domestic interests.
This was the trap that former prime minister Tony Blair and other leaders fell into: In his first term, Mr. Bush was strongly influenced by neo-conservatives, whose democracy-spreading idealism seemed compatible with the similarly idealistic views of the left. But after the other leaders had joined his Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, he switched allegiances to ordinary conservatives such as Vice-President Dick Cheney, with little interest in idealistic goals.
While Mr. Bush managed to alienate much of the world, the prospect of a new president ushered in on a wave of pro-American sentiment also raises the possibility that leaders will feel obliged to follow the new occupant of the White House — even if this ends up being to strange and uncomfortable places.
In some ways, the exclusion of Mr. Bush from international debates in multilateral institutions has made some decisions easier: The EU's military mission to rescue Chad and Darfur took place without U.S. involvement; it would have been quite a different mission had it been American-led.
As a result, there seems to be an internal battle, in many countries, between the Love, Actually moment and the Chairman Mao moment. And it is not only autocrats who choose the latter.
"In Germany, the Social Democrats' greatest fears, when it was a choice between [John] Kerry and Bush, was that Kerry might win," says Claus Christian Malzahn, the political editor of Der Spiegel magazine and a confidant of many top German politicians. "Because it's a lot harder to refuse a Democrat something than it is Bush. If Kerry had come and said we need help in Afghanistan or Iraq, it would have been a lot harder for [the left-wing German coalition] to say no than it was with Bush."
"Whoever comes next — Obama or McCain — I think that the transatlantic relationship is going to become more honest. Because it's going to be talked about more now and at the level of equals. Bush was never taken really seriously — that's going to end."
Doug Saunders London-based reporter with The Globe and Mail's European bureau. |
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