Posted on 04/01/2003 3:42:36 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
My bet: If the United States finds weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, you will see France, Canada and Latin America making a political U-turn and rushing to Bush's side.
If it doesn't, and if the Iraq conflict drags on, the planned hemispheric free trade agenda will be drowned in a worldwide wave of anti-Americanism.
There is a fierce fight within the Bush administration over how the United States should deal with neighboring countries that opposed the U.S. war on Iraq. And the hard-liners are winning.
Judging from interviews with senior U.S. officials in recent days, the Bush administration's level of annoyance is escalating with countries such as Mexico and Chile, which have refused to support U.S.-backed resolutions at the U.N. Security Council, or Canada, Argentina and Brazil, which have opposed the war with various degrees of intensity.
At first, the official U.S. line -- both publicly and privately -- was that there would be no retaliation against countries that did not support the war. Washington would not give leaders of these countries the cold shoulder, nor suddenly find previously undetected bugs in their countries' fruit exports, officials said.
But now that the war is in full swing -- and Mexico is scheduled to take over the chairmanship of the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday -- the hard-liners within the Bush administration are taking their gloves off. Countries that support Bush will be rewarded, and those that don't will get the cold treatment, the hawks say.
CLEAR SIGNALS
The hard-liners, most of whom dwell in the White House, are pressing for clear signals of U.S. displeasure with Mexico and Chile. The doves, mostly located in the State Department, argue that any real or perceived U.S. retaliation would do nothing but add fuel to worldwide assertions of U.S. arrogance and imperial attitudes.
The first signs that White House hawks were beginning to prevail came on March 17 after the United States failed to win a nine-vote Security Council majority for an ultimatum on Iraq to meet U.N. disarmament resolutions.
U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said hours later that the United States was ''disappointed'' by Mexico and Chile's positions, although officials insisted that there would be no U.S. government reprisals.
After the war began March 19, the Bush administration's signs of displeasure became more overt.
It was no coincidence that U.S. officials leaked to The Herald last week the news that President Bush had waited four days before returning a call from Mexican President Vicente Fox. Or that, in case Fox had missed the message, a U.S. official said that the four-day delay should have made Fox realize that ``the relationship has been affected.''
TRIP TO CANADA
And it's no coincidence that Bush may consider canceling a planned state visit to Canada on May 5, according to Canada's National Post. Or that U.S. Ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci, raising the previous level of U.S. rhetoric by a notch, said the United States is ''disappointed and upset'' by Canada's position on the war.
Asked about the escalating U.S. rhetoric, a State Department spokesman told me Friday that President Bush continues to be committed to creating a 34-country Free Trade Area of the Americas by 2005, and reiterated that Mexico and Chile's stands in the Security Council ``will not affect the crucial political and economic relations that we maintain with these two countries.''
CONSEQUENCES
A senior U.S. official who moves in hawkish circles cautioned me not to read too much into that statement. There will be consequences for nonsupportive countries, he said.
''We are not going to take punitive actions, such as slapping tariffs on Mexican or Chilean imports, or anything like that,'' the official said. ``But when they have a problem, who are they going to turn to?''
Chile may be the first to feel the new chill in bilateral relations, because the recently concluded U.S.-Chile free trade agreement may be sent to the U.S. Congress as early as May. Noting that recent free trade votes in the U.S. Congress have only passed because Bush picked up the phone and lobbied undecided lawmakers, one U.S. official wondered aloud whether Bush will be doing that for Chile now.
Will the administration's harder line leave permanent scars in U.S. relations with Canada and Latin America? Is the plan to create a hemisphere-wide free trade area in peril?
OUTCOME
My bet: If the United States finds weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, you will see France, Canada and Latin America making a political U-turn and rushing to Bush's side.
If it doesn't, and if the Iraq conflict drags on, the planned hemispheric free trade agenda will be drowned in a worldwide wave of anti-Americanism.
We Americans maintain our military strength with the fervent hope that it will never be used, and with the conviction that this is, indeed, the best way to preserve the peace. We maintain our defensive strength in concert with our allies and friends, whose freedom and independence is vital to our own security. Our national strength, of course, is not based only on the force of arms. The ideals of human liberty are themselves powerful weapons in the world competition between democracy and totalitarianism.
Thus, it is fitting that Americans from all walks of life and many citizens of our fellow democracies are working to strengthen democratic institutions throughout the world. It is becoming clearer every day, especially to emerging countries in the Third World, that democracy is not only the best path to freedom but, also, the most effective way of achieving economic progress. Democracy is the way to a more peaceful world. The ultimate goal of Peace Through Strength Week is a world where the people of each nation are free to determine their own destiny and where no state threatens its neighbors.***Ronald Reagan Statement on the Observance of National Peace Through Strength Week - September 22, 1984
Maybe my opinion is somewhat extreme, but I think that one of the reasons that LatAm and other countries have been abandoning us recently is simply that they don't think we have the strength anymore, or at least the willingness to use it. They are threatened by other forces - Marxism and radical Islam - that have demonstrated, on the other hand, that they have force and are quite willing to use it.
It's not high-tech force, and consists mainly of things like car-bombings (although Chavez' recent bombing of his borders indicates that it's getting more state support) with an occasional spectacular success like 9/11, but it's still an indication that the people who behind it, Marxists or Islamics, are fully committed to using whatever force they have.
We, on the other hand, appeared vacillating and even weak, and I think that many countries (including France) actually believed they were picking the stronger side when they aligned themselves with our enemies.
You know what?
I don't give a dinar.
The international America-haters will continue to bitch and moan whatever we do so I'm for telling 'em all to suck eggs.
It's time we stopped kissing butts.
Go ahead, call me simplistic.
It doesn't matter one whit what the rest of the planet thinks or does about us.
We are sovereign politically and awash in natural resources.
The greatest minds reside within our borders and we're the biggest dog in any fight.
By God's grace we are so abundantly blessed that we share our wealth with a world that is broke.
Let 'em whine.
We'll still share because it is our nature as free men to give back some of that which has been given to us.
Either get on the bus or walk.
Hugo Chávez and the Limits of Democracy*** The 21st century was not supposed to engender a Latin American president with a red beret. Instead of obsessing about luring private capital, he scares it away. Rather than strengthening ties with the United States, he befriends Cuba. Such behavior was supposed to have been made obsolete by the democratization, economic deregulation and globalization of the 1990's.
Venezuela is an improbable country to have fallen into this political abyss. It is vast, wealthy, relatively modern and cosmopolitan, with a strong private sector and a homogeneous mixed-race population with little history of conflict. Democracy was supposed to have prevented its decline into a failed state. Yet once President Chávez gained control over the government, his rule became exclusionary and profoundly undemocratic. Under Mr. Chávez, Venezuela is a powerful reminder that elections are necessary but not sufficient for democracy, and that even longstanding democracies can unravel overnight.A government's legitimacy flows not only from the ballot box but also from the way it conducts itself. Accountability and institutional restraints and balances are needed. The international community became adept at monitoring elections and ensuring their legitimacy in the 1990's. The Venezuelan experience illustrates the urgency of setting up equally effective mechanisms to validate a government's practices.
The often stealthy transgressions of Mr. Chávez have unleashed a powerful expression of what is perhaps the only trend of the 1990's still visible in Venezuela: civil society. In today's Venezuela millions of once politically indifferent citizens stage almost daily marches and rallies larger than those that forced the early resignations of other democratically presidents around the world. This is not a traditional opposition movement. It is an inchoate network of people from all social classes and walks of life, who are organized in loosely coordinated units and who do not have any other ambition than to stop a president who has made their country unlivable. Two out of three Venezuelans living under the poverty line oppose President Chávez, according to a Venezuelan survey released in January.***
I predict that there will be a wave of Buy-American that hasn't been seen in our lifetime.
The corollary will be that Immigration Reform (including secure borders) will get a boost that it otherwise would not have gotten.
There may be a bit of Fortress America.
So what ? Why shouldn't we direct our money to home-grown industries ?
In addition, our new best friends will be Eastern Europe.
You're simplistic!
You're also 100% correct.
The simplest solution is normally the correct one. We need to get back to the simple solution. It's better for a country to be feared than to be loved. Especially since they will never love us anyway.
as are Ireland, England, Spain and Australia.
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