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Secretary Rice said US foreign policy has served the cause of democracy worldwide successfully, working under President Bush's belief that democracy is not just for a few. She cited Iraq's move to a multi-ethnic democracy and voting rights of women in Kuwait as evidence. She also said that because of US' role, the European parliament has not been afraid to award Andrei Sakharov prize to Chinese dissident Hu Jia despite the blowback from Beijing. She said Egypt will change and that Egyptians will demand a different presidential election next time.
On Middle-East, Secretary Rice said there have been substantial gains but cited that the real change has been in conversation all over the region where every country is now seeking some form of popular legitimacy. In the context of Palestine-Israel relations, she said that “the Palestinian leadership is avowedly in favour of negotiations, renounces violence, and recognizes the right of Israel to exist. There is a robust negotiating process, and they have made a lot of progress on how to get to a two-state solution”. She said Hamas takeover of Gaza has been a problem but that the Egyptians have helped in containing conflict. The US effort there has been to strengthen the hands of Mahmoud Abbas to take an agreement to the Palestinians by demonstrating that Hamas has no solution to the Palestinian problem.
On Iran, Secretary Rice said the objectives have been to change the behaviour of the regime but not the regime itself and help indigenous forces there with democracy. On Darfur, Secretary Rice expressed regret that the principle “the responsibility to protect” that the UN adopted in 2006 in the end meant nothing but empty words with no one wanting consequences, leaving the US using sanctions unilaterally to no useful purpose.
On Europe, Secretary Rice dismissed the perception that US has poor relations with that continent as “myth” though she admitted some disagreement without any serious problems in US-Europe relations. On Russia, she said that the country is in an “infrastructural nightmare” where an aging population is being replaced by a “sickly population”, concluding that US could remain “calm” about Russia.
About President Bush's legacy in foreign affairs, Secretary Rice said the most important one has been in spreading the message of freedom just not from tyranny but also poverty, disease and linking these to US's security needs. She said the world is at a historical transformation and US foreign policy goals set to motion by President Bush will tie democracy, defense and development in one single process. She also said that Bush's foreign policy has successfully handled foreign assistance, doubling it in Latin America; quadrupling in Africa and tripling worldwide, adding 300 new AID officers and 1100 Foreign Service officers to the State Department.
Secretary Rice's interview is, to say the least, very interesting given the fact that upon analysis it is very thin on substance against the claims she has made. Egypt elected Hosne Mubarak in 2005 for fifth consecutive six-year term by 88% and her prediction for a more credible election next time rests only on the hope that Mubarak will be too old to participate in it. The situation in Iraq is far from what has been claimed and she has not talked about the human costs, with so many thousands of innocent lives lost, not to speak of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent that has caused the greatest meltdown in US history that is now threatening to take down the world economy with it down the same path in which it now lies.
The claim on change in ME is also suspect given the fact after eight years of Bush's tenure, the region remains as far removed from democracy as it was at the end of the Clinton term. Ironically, it is in Palestine that a truly democratic parliamentary election was held in 2006 in which the Palestinians freely and fairly elected the Hamas that the US rejected because of Hamas' links to terrorism. In June 2007 US, in collusion with Israel, unsuccessfully tried to put a faction of Hamas led by Mohhmad Dahlan whom President Bush called “our guy” to overthrow the Hamas led Government. In fact the foundations that are the basis of democracy that the US preaches like universal franchise: elections for political offices, a freely elected parliament, are present only in Iran and Palestine. Elsewhere, monarchs are as powerful as ever and as a result of US foreign policy in the region, these monarchs have received extra hundreds of billions of dollars by windfall as a consequence of increase in price of oil three fold due to the invasion of Iraq. They have spent these extra billions partly to distribute further economic prosperity to their people so that they have less need to think or worry for democratic governments. Thus, at least on surface, there are no significant moves for democracy in the ME, except in Egypt where US economic and military aid has kept and continues to keep General Mubarak in power.
Iran has been identified by the US as an “axis of evil” and in these last eight years, there has been speculations on and off that US would invade that country to bring down its alleged nuclear installations urged by its strongest ally in the region, Israel, that has a major nuclear arsenal of its own and had in the past attacked Iraq in the 1980s to bring down that country's nuclear installation. Iran's only fault, seen by the US, is that its President has said Iran will wipe Israel out of existence. That statement, unacceptable as it is, has never been put in its proper perspective from the Iranian point of view. Iran is in the middle of a region surrounded on all sides by nuclear weapons states: Israel on the west, Russia on the north and Pakistan on the east. With all three, the US has excellent relations. In case of Pakistan, US endeared her at a time when General Musharraf had come to power after overthrowing a democratically elected government and under the cloud for selling nuclear technology in the open market. Iran needs to be assured of its own security that cannot be enhanced with Israel urging the US to attack Iran and USA calling Iran an “axis of evil”. Furthermore, Iran, with its view on Israel notwithstanding, cannot be denied access to civil nuclear technology, now less so after the US has signed the civil-nuclear deal with India which is a nuclear weapons state.
The failure to focus on the Palestinian issue as the most important problem in the ME has been a major failure in US foreign policy under President Bush. It took his Secretary of State Colin Powell eight months to pay his first visit to ME and on that visit he said that Iraq and not the Palestinian issue was more important in US foreign policy, thereby striking all the good work done for resolution of the Palestinian problem in the Clinton era; a problem that is the single most important factor that has rendered maximum wind to the sail of Islamic terrorism. The hastily declared war on terror following 9/11 that took the US to Afghanistan in search of Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda and then leaving Afghanistan with the work unfinished to invade Iraq on falsehood and deceit placed the US foreign policy into conflict with the rest of the world, the consequences of which have devastated the world.
The postscript on the assessment on US foreign policy under President Bush has been written in the way the world rejoiced at the victory of Senator Obama. Never in history has a world leader been hailed the way as Senator Obama has been hailed; nor ever will a US President leave office with such an abysmal infamy record as President Bush. The world's rejoicing at Senator Obama's victory has been due almost totally to the failure of US foreign policy in the past eight years. The doctrine of pre-emptive strike and “you are either with us or against us” that have been at the basis of US foreign policy during this period have made the United States very unpopular with the rest of the world. The new US President, Secretary Rice's tall claims in her NYT interview notwithstanding, will have a very challenging task ahead to win back the trust that the world has lost in the US by recasting the foreign policy of the neo-con that has been based on the belief that US can and has the power to impose its will on the rest of the world.
US foreign policy under President Bush has sent democracy, defense and development on three different directions. It will now be President-elect Obama's task to bring these in line for sake of the United States and the world.
Published in The Daily Star, November 21, 2008
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