Bush Isolated as Speech to U.N. Falls Flat
    Gary Younge
    The Guardian

    Wednesday 24 September 2003

    George Bush was increasingly isolated on the global stage yesterday as he defied intense criticism from a litany of world leaders at the United Nations over the war on Iraq.

    Showing no contrition for defying the world body in March or the declining security situation in Iraq, the U.S. president called for the world to set aside past differences and help rebuild the country: "Now the nation of Iraq needs and deserves our aid - and all nations of goodwill should step forward and provide that support," he said.

    But the French president, Jacques Chirac, who spoke after Mr Bush, blamed the U.S.-led war for sparking one of the most severe crises in the history of the U.N. and argued that Mr Bush's unilateral actions could lead to anarchy.

    "No one can act alone in the name of all and no one can accept the anarchy of a society without rules," he said. "The war, launched without the authorisation of the security council, shook the multilateral system. The U.N. has just been through one of the most grave crises in its history."

    Earlier the U.N. secretary general, Kofi Annan, condemned the doctrine of preemptive military intervention, arguing that it could lead to the unjustified "lawless use of force" and posed a "fundamental challenge" to world peace and stability.

    "My concern is that, if it were to be adopted, it could set precedents that resulted in a proliferation of the unilateral and lawless use of force, with or without credible justification," said Mr Annan. "This logic represents a fundamental challenge to the principles on which, however imperfectly, world peace and stability have rested for the last 58 years."

    The Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who also spoke before Mr Bush, said: "A war can perhaps be won single-handedly. But peace - lasting peace - cannot be secured without the support of all."

    Mr Bush's speech was received with polite applause from the 191-member states, while his critics were given a far warmer reception.

    The American president was not just under fire for his decision to wage war without international consent but also for his refusal to move more quickly towards handing control of the country back to the Iraqi people.

    Both Mr Chirac and the German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, called for a transition within months, insisting that this was crucial to securing peace. Mr Bush has not laid out a timetable. "This process must unfold according to the needs of Iraqis - neither hurried nor delayed by the voices of other parties," he said.

    Mr Bush is under increasing domestic political pressure to outline a strategy to get out of Iraq, where increasing military casualties and growing financial burden on a strained economy are draining support ahead of next year's presidential election.

    Having bypassed the U.N. to bomb Iraq, America returned to the security council earlier this month asking for military and financial help to assist it with the costs of the occupation. The resolution is currently before the security council, where France has the power of veto.

    Bush's U.N. Appeal Misses Overseas Targets
    By Jefferson Morley
    Washington Post

    Wednesday 24 September 2003

    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.'"

 

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