Posted on 03/08/2003 10:09:26 AM PST by Indy Pendance
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush, who came to power by a slim electoral margin and with little experience in foreign policy, suddenly finds himself in one of the deepest diplomatic crises of any recent American president.
Despite rising international opposition and without U.N. support, he is preparing to use U.S. force to disarm and depose Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein. Bush is staking his credibility - perhaps his presidency - on success in Iraq.
Bush insists his pursuit of Saddam is not personal. But throughout much of the world, Bush is being held personally accountable for the march to war.
"This is a war that has Bush's name on it, for better or worse," said pollster Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center.
Leaders who have openly supported Bush - British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, Australian Prime Minister John Howard - have found their positions increasingly at odds with public sentiment at home.
A showdown comes this week in the U.N. Security Council as members weigh the consequences of opposing the United States.
Bush indicated in a prime-time television news conference last week that he would seek a U.N. war vote, even lacking the support to prevail.
In a late effort to make the resolution more palatable, the United States and Britain proposed giving Saddam until March 17 to comply with U.N. inspections or face war. Other Security Council members balked, with France threatening to use its veto.
Polls overseas show little support for military action now to disarm Iraq. Even Israel is deeply divided on the subject.
U.S. polls show that most Americans support Bush but would like the administration to win international backing before using force.
"For those who urge more diplomacy, I would simply say that diplomacy hasn't worked," Bush counters.
Many hawks want Bush to finish the job that his father began with the Persian Gulf War in 1991. But Bush insists there is nothing personal about his effort, even saying he did not feel any personal anger about an alleged Iraqi plot to kill members of his family with a car bomb during a 1993 visit to Kuwait.
"The fact that he tried to kill my father and my wife shows the nature of the man. He's cold-blooded," Bush said last week. "The decision I'm making and have made to disarm Saddam Hussein is based on the security of the American people."
Even so, Bush has gone to great lengths to personalize and demonize his enemies, especially alleged terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and Saddam.
"I think he's in a personal contest of wills with Saddam Hussein. And he's determined not to blink first. And to that sense, it is personal," said David Albright, a former nuclear weapons inspector in Iraq. Despite Bush's rhetoric, "most people in the world want the inspection process to continue," Albright said.
James Steinberg, deputy national security adviser in the Clinton administration, said Bush had "made this more confrontational with the international community than he needed to." Forcing Security Council members to publicly take sides "puts the other countries in a terrible position," Steinberg said.
Some of Bush's certitude and self-confidence is seen in Europe and other parts of the world as American arrogance.
But European nations also have their own agendas and were becoming restive about growing U.S. power before Bush took office, said Andrew Kuchins of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
"My view is that we've handled this diplomatically in a very clumsy way, and we've really painted ourselves in a box. And I think we've needlessly alienated a lot of key allies and partners," Kuchins said.
Bush supporters say some way must be found around U.N. procrastination, and trans-Atlantic wounds will heal once Saddam is gone from power.
"The U.N. is a very noble institution. It's been here over 50 years. And it will continue to serve a purpose in the future," said Secretary of State Colin Powell.
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EDITOR'S NOTE - Tom Raum has covered Washington for The Associated Press since 1973, including five presidencies.
His father FINISHED his job; Bush 41 didn't have a mandate OR a resolution to remove Saddam, regardless of how many times the liberal press insinuate he did.
It's incredible to watch a man who believes in doing the right thing, regardless of what the outcome may be.
Gee, and here I thought that Tony Blair's position was decreasingly at odds with the views of the British population. Didn't parliament just approve of his position by a large margin? Didn't the latest British polls show support for the war?
Thank God we have a man in the White House who is man enough to take it personally and seek to defend US! The world's favorite deviant, sinkEmperor (France's favorite sleaze mongerer), didn't have enough integrity to take it personally when he declared war on terrorists in order to divert attention from his deviancy with a White House intern. Damn him and his party of bitter little nuts. When Iraq is liberated, they will be left dangling by their bitter necks, exposed for the enablers of evil that they are.
Unbelievable.
I hope Mr. Murdoch buys them out.
Gee I thought the rest of the world belonged to the UN that passed all resolutions that Iraq has defied. This is becoming more like a scene from ALICE IN WONDERLAND
Has the world gone mad?
I have taken over Bush's brain and I am doing what I've wanted to do for years.
Don't blame him.........blame me! :>)
(1) Pointing out that members of his immediate family were targeted doesn't make it personal. Targeting ANY past or present Presidents or first family members (as well as any American, for that matter) is a terrorist act of war against the United States. I would feel the same (as much as I dislike them) if any of the Clintons or Carter were targeted. This is a matter of national solidarity.
(2) Kim Jong Il is directly implicated in international political assassination plots from the last 2 decades. If anything he is crazier and more evil the Saddam Hussein.
That said, Ted Kennedy's argument that we aren't paying them enough attention is complete B.S. Next the liberals will be complaining that conservatives aren't doing enough to stop Communist oppression in Vietnam.
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