- WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The world
now faces President George W. Bush triumphant after the midterm elections.
His Republican Party is in command of both Houses of Congress, and Bush
can claim a potent new mandate for an assertive foreign policy whose unilateralist
"America First" implications have disconcerted friends and foes
alike.
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- "We are dealing with a power that has no limit in
its dealing with foreign issues," said Mohammed Shaker, head of the
Egyptian Council on Foreign Relations, whose wariness of a Bush administration
unrestrained by any other branch of government was widely shared beyond
U.S. shores.
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- Diplomats in Washington Wednesday, while noting that
the executive branch was always in charge of foreign policy, suggested
that the Republican majorities in Congress would give the Bush administration
even more self-assurance in foreign policy, and adding weight to its more
hawkish voices and weakening the doves.
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- "My guess is that one of the losers of this election
campaign might be (Secretary of State) Colin Powell, who has been seen
by most foreign governments as a voice of caution and of wisdom in an administration
that otherwise seems largely filled with hawks," commented one senior
NATO diplomat based in Washington.
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- "When Powell and other administration officials
go up to Capitol Hill to explain their policies, he will no longer be facing
that internationalist Democrat, Sen. Joe Biden. The new chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee could be a very different type of interlocutor.
And certainly the majority on that committee, and the chairmen of the important
sub-committees, will be very different," the NATO diplomat added.
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- Other diplomats suggested the United States would become
tougher to deal with on international issues and was likely to be more
dismissive of the United Nations and cooler to traditional allies like
Germany and France that are now perceived as critics of the Bush administration's
policy on Iraq.
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- "If there were much hope for any American compromises
on international issues like the Kyoto Protocol (on global warming) and
the International Criminal Court, this election result probably knocks
all that on the head," commented one European ambassador. "This
might not be an easy administration to work with in the sense of finding
agreed solutions. I suspect we might hear rather more 'take it or leave
it.'"
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- On the whole, diplomats seem to expect a change in tone
coming from Washington rather than any dramatic new shifts in policy. The
executive branch always runs foreign policy, aside from big issues like
war or peace or the ratification of treaties. And on the main issues, like
threatening war on Iraq or the new national security doctrine that authorizes
pre-emptive strikes, have already been decided.
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- In Asia, officials were trying to assess what the elections
could mean for their region. Taku Yamasaki, secretary-general of Japan's
ruling Liberal Democratic Party, concluded that America's War on terrorism
would continue even more forcefully, since the Republican victory "confirms
that public opinion remained united behind the Bush administration's policy."
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- "In terms of foreign policy, Mr. Bush would gain
much more leeway in dealing with the war on terrorism and the Iraq threat,"
said Singapore's Straits Times.
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- In South Korea, some commentators saw the election result
strengthening Bush's hands if he decided to get tough with North Korea
over its admission that it was enriching uranium with a view to developing
nuclear weapons. But they also feared the Korean issues might be on the
back burner, after Powell called Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong on Wednesday
and said he had to cancel a planned visit to South Korea next week because
of "unavoidable circumstances" related to the U.N. Security Council
resolution on Iraq.
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- In Europe and the Middle East, media comment seemed to
expect a tougher line coming from Washington over Iraq, with an agreed
resolution in the U.N. Security Council said to be very close.
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- "The prospect of waging war on Iraq looks to be
increased," Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV said Wednesday.
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- "Not quite elected in 2000, Monsieur Bush sees his
political base reinforced by a remarkable electoral success that offers
him an even greater freedom of maneuver in his strategy towards Iraq,"
commented France's leading daily, Le Monde.
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- "The big loser of these elections, apart from the
democrats, is none other than Saddam Hussein," commented the left-wing
French daily Liberation. "An election setback for Bush would have
been inevitably interpreted as a rejection by the American people of his
threatening rhetoric against 'the axis of evil' whose pivot lies in Baghdad.
Bush can thus henceforth claim a strong mandate of popular support for
his politics of enforced disarmament of Iraq, and also in his dealing with
the U.N."
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- "The results staggered many pundits who saw Bush
as a dimwit who had become president through good fortune and a court-managed
technicality," said The Times of India Wednesday. "The president
appeared to have erased that stigma. Pundits and pollsters saw the results
as an affirmation of the American people's faith in George Bush in the
face of the challenges he is facing. They also surmised that the events
of 9/11 had a profound effect on America despite previews suggesting the
elections would be based on local issues."
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- Only in Israel did there seem to be little new deference
to the Bush administration and its striking new mandate. Israel's new Foreign
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu marked his own return to government by asserting
the Bush administration's latest "roadmap for peace" was "not
on the agenda." Netanyahu also told Israeli TV Wednesday he thought
the attack on Saddam would be a good time to expel Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat, despite earlier promises from Israeli premier Ariel Sharon to President
Bush that Arafat "would not be harmed."
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- Copyright © 2002 United Press International
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