Posted on 02/04/2005 1:37:00 PM PST by naturalman1975
'WE sure dodged a bullet with that asshole, Latham, didn't we?" Thus spoke an American official concerned with the US-Australia relationship, in a sentiment I found remarkably widespread throughout official Washington.
At all the Washington power centres concerned with the US-Australia relationship -- the CIA, Pentagon, Congress, National Security Council, White House, State Department -- people had followed Mark Latham's strange trajectory, and his intermittent but sometimes vicious anti-Americanism, with intense interest.
Within the ALP there was considerable anger that President George W. Bush intervened in our election by saying, at a joint press conference with a visiting John Howard, that for us to withdraw our troops from Iraq would be a disaster.
In reality the ALP had no moral standing to display this sensitivity given Latham's scatological and abusive remarks about Bush.
But that is all beside the point now. What has not been previously revealed is that official Washington thought there was a good chance of a real crisis in the US-Australia alliance if Latham became PM. Some of Latham's colleagues thought so, too. The Americans would have worked hard to preserve the alliance but they felt Latham was inherently unpredictable and dangerous.
It is difficult to know what Labor frontbencher Julia Gillard means when she calls for Labor to have a "more independent" foreign policy. Part of the paradox of Kim Beazley's ascension is that he will be free to make more robust, reasoned criticisms of US and Australian foreign policy because no one doubts his basic competence or common sense in security questions.
Three appointments in the new Bush administration are particularly good for Australia. One is Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State. As Bush's national security adviser, Rice was intimately involved in the Bush-Howard alliance. She has gone out of her way to be obliging to Australia.
More important, assuming there are no wars in the second Bush administration, more of the day-to-day management of the relationship will flow back to the State Department, whereas in the first term so much of it was involved in the White House (for high politics), the Pentagon (for military matters) and the Congress (for the free-trade agreement).
Each of these three institutions remains more powerful than the State Department in an absolute sense. This is partly the way the US works but it also reflects an international trend. Foreign ministries, though important still, are becoming less important.
There are many reasons for this. Politics in the Western world is increasingly presidential and more decisions are taken by heads of government and their offices. Defence ministries always have much bigger budgets than foreign ministries and engage more domestic interests. The speed of modern communications means that embassies and the machinery of traditional diplomacy are less central than they once were. Decisions down to a much lower level can now all be micro-managed in a nation's capital.
One of the ways foreign ministers remain relevant is if they are very close to the head of government. This is an insight Alexander Downer understands very well. Downer has become an important and consequential foreign minister precisely because, in the management of the politics of national security, he is so close to Howard. When Downer talks to foreign governments they know he has the authority to commit the Australian Government.
Rice will begin as Secretary of State with a similar, huge advantage. She is not the national symbol Colin Powell was, but whereas foreigners talking to Powell wondered whether he could deliver his own government, they will start with the assumption that Bush will back any call Rice makes.
That assumption may yet be tested by other powerful actors in Washington, but for Rice it's immensely useful.
The second appointment that's good for Australia is Bob Zoellick, the US Trade Representative, who will become Deputy Secretary of State. That Zoellick accepted this is a tribute to his professionalism and his concern for substance over form. It's very unusual for a serving cabinet secretary to accept a notional demotion to a sub-cabinet position. It had been strongly rumoured in Washington that Zoellick would be the next head of the World Bank, a very desirable post indeed.
But in truth the Deputy Secretary of State is one of the six or seven most important positions in the US Government. No secretary can handle the whole world. The deputy is a kind of co-foreign minister. The former deputy, Rich Armitage, was given the awesome responsibility, for example, of standing down a nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan.
Zoellick is a serious Asia hand who, like Armitage, is profoundly linked to Australia. He, above all, negotiated and drove the free trade agreement between the US and Australia. Put simply, it would not have happened without Zoellick.
Similarly, he has made many visits to Australia and has countless Aussie friends. In college he was a long-distance runner and his hero was Ron Clarke. He may, like Armitage, become the "minister for Australia".
The third appointment of great significance to Australia is that of the US ambassador to Canberra, Tom Schieffer, who will become the US ambassador to Japan.
Schieffer is a close friend of Bush but more than that, throughout official Washington he is regarded as having done a superb job in very tricky times in Australia.
US ambassador to Japan is perhaps the single most important diplomatic post in the world. He is the emissary of the world's largest economy to the world's second-largest economy. Japan is permanent host to more US troops than any other nation in Asia, and this forward troop presence is the beating heart of the US ability to project power in Asia.
And because the cultural difference between Japan and the US is so great, there is much interpretative work to do, and because Japan is so hierarchical, there is a vast representational and symbolic role for the ambassador. These considerations do not apply so much, say, to the US ambassador in London.
To have someone so intimately familiar with Australia's interests in this position is a big plus for us. These appointments don't guarantee Australia will always get what it wants, but they are points of access, points of influence, and they are invaluable.
Well..It looks like a happy fit all round!
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