Posted on 06/30/2002 5:26:25 AM PDT by BigWaveBetty
Summit conferences of the G-8 are a lot more fun than they used to be. Not so long ago, they were nothing more than extended cocktail parties for the rich, predictable leaders of rich, predictable nations. But in recent years, anti-globalization protesters have given these conclaves a sense of drama and even danger.
Last week in Alberta, the Canadians kept the demonstrators miles away. There was excitement, however, courtesy of a revolutionary named President Bush.
At Alberta, Bush tossed a Molotov cocktail at conventional Middle East diplomacy by announcing that there would be no Palestinian state until the Palestinians dumped Yasser Arafat and accepted basic Western norms of political behavior.
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof reported that Bush's G-8 colleagues reacted to this by "wincing, gulping and disagreeing." According to Kristof, these leaders think Bush is "nuts" to insist that Arafat step down.
This assessment reflects the conventional wisdom of the international press corps. After Bush met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a reporter pointedly asked Bush if he was "astonished" by the reaction of his fellow leaders.
"The response has been positive, and for that I am grateful," Bush said blandly. And a strange thing happened. A smiling Putin neither winced nor gulped.
Putin was not alone in failing to register the requisite outrage. Earlier in the conference, British Prime Minister Tony Blair came very close to endorsing the President's new policy, a posture Kristof chalks up to good manners.
Italy's Silvio Berlusconi is not known for excessive politesse, but he, too, signed on with Bush. "If I were Arafat," said the Italian premier, "I would make a grand gesture." Berlusconi did not specify whether the Palestinian leader should use cyanide or a pistol.
Canada and Japan said nothing audible about the new American policy, and in any event, neither is a Middle Eastern player. Germany's Gerhard Schroeder mumbled some words of disagreement but for obvious reasons refrained from an emotional public defense of Arafat's terror war against the Jewish state.
Only French President Jacques Chirac conformed to expectations. He let it be known that in his view, the President of America was acting without nuance.
The G-8's final communiqué did not make this point. It called for a two-state solution "within secure borders" and pointed to "the urgency of reform of Palestinian institutions and its [sic] economy and of free and fair elections." The statement stopped short of demanding Arafat's head (although, given Arafat's life-long incorrigibility, it came close). But it did sound a lot like the President's recipe, hold the adjectives.
Bush's success is a great frustration to his worldly critics, and a great mystery. They do not understand how such a rube (the man never even spent a semester in Europe) keeps getting his way with foreigners.
In less than two years, Bush has savaged conventional wisdom by dropping the anti-ballistic missile treaty, green-lighting Star Wars, walking away from the Kyoto global warming pact, boycotting a United Nations conference on human rights and saying no to the new international criminal court in The Hague. He has taken the U.S. to war without the permission of a coalition, restored "good" and "evil" to the language of big-power diplomacy and introduced an American defense doctrine of unilateral preemption. And now he is insisting that the price of self-determination should be civilized behavior.
This is a foreign policy revolution unmatched even by President Ronald Reagan.
Bush knows that civilization requires America to run the world and that if it isn't run according to clear and simple principles, it can't be run at all.
E-mail: zchafets@yahoo.com
Some of the naysayers should get over here and read this article. I'm sending it along to some of my doubting friends.
Thanks for the pings, Freedom and ohio. Great article--hats off to the truth, for once.
Indeed. I happened to hear Gore speak today for a few ungodly minutes. The nauseation factor was so great, I am convinced that had Gore's election fraud gone through, there would be a massive "sickout" by Americans who would have literally been sickened to death by his orations and his pretense.
Maybe that's what Hillary and Bill were counting on? Maybe their plan was for Algore to make so many sick that they would be "forced" to step back on the stage of power to "save" the country from mass hospitalizations!
I just love the Bush/Putin relationship. It is for real.
"In less than two years, Bush has savaged conventional wisdom by dropping the anti-ballistic missile treaty, green-lighting Star Wars, walking away from the Kyoto global warming pact, boycotting a United Nations conference on human rights and saying no to the new international criminal court in The Hague. He has taken the U.S. to war without the permission of a coalition, restored "good" and "evil" to the language of big-power diplomacy and introduced an American defense doctrine of unilateral preemption. And now he is insisting that the price of self-determination should be civilized behavior.
This is a foreign policy revolution unmatched even by President Ronald Reagan.
Bush knows that civilization requires America to run the world and that if it isn't run according to clear and simple principles, it can't be run at all.
Bush knows that civilization requires America to run the world and that if it isn't run according to clear and simple principles, it can't be run at all.
And a hearty AIRBORNE bump to you, sir!
The year in Viet Nam, no jumps at all, not even any practice ones. Then there was no time before my enlistment ended to quailify.
Meanwhile, back in France, yet another success in the annals of France's "nuanced" foreign policy manifests itself....
Be Seeing You,
Chris
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