WORLD AFFAIRS

A failed mission

JOHN CHERIAN

President George Bush's visit to Europe to garner support for his policies, especially on Iraq and Iran, from the traditional allies of the United States ends in disappointment.

LUKE FRAZZA /AFP

George W. Bush with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a joint press conference in Bratislava, Slovakia.

IT was billed as the tour to heal the festering trans-Atlantic wounds created in the course of the war in Iraq when United States President George W. Bush chose Europe as his first major destination for an official visit after his re-election. But many analysts are now of the opinion that the gulf between the two Atlantic coasts has never been wider. The political divisions in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) precipitated by U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's characterisation of Germany, France and Belgium as "old Europe" still persists. "New Europe", led by Poland and comprising mainly East European countries, continues to follow the U.S. blindly.

Old Europe, if the recent statements of French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and their allies is any yardstick, is not averse to continuing the traditional alliance with Washington but is against subservience of the kind shown by leaders such as Italy's Silvio Berlusconi. The "old" Europeans have never hidden their contempt for what they perceive as the Bush administration's imperial policies and the President's refusal to accommodate the interests of the E.U. on important issues such as monetary policy and the environment.

The Bush administration's contempt for international law has made Bush a hate figure on the streets of Europe. The American President wanted to hold a town hall meeting during his visit to Germany but had to give up the plan as the German authorities refused to guarantee a friendly audience. Demonstrators hounded Bush in most places he visited, though they were kept at a safe distance by the authorities. The only exception was in Brussels, Belgium, where the police had to use water cannons to disperse a crowd of demonstrators in viewing distance of the American President. More than 12,000 protesters gathered in the German city of Mainz, carrying placards reading "No.1 Terrorist" and "War-monger". One poster read: "We had our Hitler, now you have yours".

The American President's packed itinerary included meetings with Chirac, Schroeder and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The three leaders have not been seeing eye to eye with Bush on important international issues, notably Iraq. There was also the issue of France and Germany wanting to sell sophisticated defence weaponry to China. The Bush administration had gone public in its demand that Western Europe maintain the arms embargo on China that was instituted after the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989. The European leaders say that the embargo was only an informal arrangement and that it is in their economic and strategic interests to retain China as an economic partner.

FRANCOIS LO PRESTI/AFP

A demonstration near the European Commission headquarters in Brussels.

The Bush administration had differences with Berlin and Paris on Iran's nuclear plans too. The Europeans were not happy when U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described Iran as a "totalitarian" state, during her visit to Paris in February. One of the first things Bush did on touching down on European soil was to assure the world that there were no plans on the table for military action against Iran. The Europeans have shown a preference for a negotiated settlement with Teheran, allowing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) a free hand. Moscow has gone an important step further. It is helping in the building of the Iranian nuclear reactor in Bushehr and is supplying the nuclear fuel.

The relations between Washington and Moscow have undergone a further freeze after the Bush administration went public with its criticism of Russia's domestic politics. Moscow on its part has reasons to be wary about the Bush administration's game plan for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Besides the expansion of NATO and the proliferation of American military bases in Europe, the Kremlin has now got to deal with political revolutions manipulated by Washington in the states that constituted the former Soviet Union. The Kremlin's decision to wrest control of the country's energy resources from the hands of oil barons backed by the West, has rubbed the representatives of Big Oil, which is very influential in the Bush administration, the wrong way.

The first important meeting the U.S. President had was with his French counterpart, Chirac. The American media has often described Chirac as Bush's "nemesis". However, the two leaders went out of their way to project a spirit of bonhomie. France welcomed the holding of the recent elections in Iraq supervised by the U.S. The two sides also found common ground on the issue of forcing Syrian peacekeepers out of Lebanon.

Bush reassured the media that he continued to enjoy "warm relations" with Chirac. The two countries do indeed work together in the Balkans and Afghanistan. But Bush wants France to take the lead in getting NATO forces into Iraq and at the same time lend financial help, as the cost of the war to the U.S. economy has risen to unprecedented levels. The major differences between the two countries, however, were difficult to paper over, including those relating to the lifting of the arms embargo on China. After the talks, the French Foreign Office spokesman said that "lifting the arms embargo on China was an appropriate measure".

Washington, on the other hand, made it clear that such a move would constitute a threat to "its strategic interests". Bush expressed his "deep concern" saying that a transfer of military technology would alter the military balance between China and Taiwan.

PATRICK KOVARIK /AP

French President Jacques Chirac (left) and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder at the NATO summit in Brussels.

The Bush administration spokesman described the meeting with the French President as "cordial", which in diplomatic jargon means that there has been no substantial improvement in bilateral relations. The Bush administration is also unhappy with the European Union's decision to market aggressively its Airbus aircraft in China's booming aviation market. Despite all the nice words, Washington and Paris continue to differ on other issues such as Iraq, the future of NATO and Iran. An opinion poll taken in the last week of February in France revealed that an overwhelming majority of the French people (84 per cent) believe that it is not the job of the U.S. to promote democracy around the world.

THE outcome of the Bush visit has given concrete indications that the E.U. has decisively charted an independent course. The euro has become a potent challenger of the mighty U.S. dollar. The E.U. has now acquired an independent international profile and a credible military force. It has taken independent and united stands on issues as diverse as the Kyoto Protocol and the creation of an independent and viable Palestinian state.

Bush made an appeal to his fellow NATO leaders in Brussels, asking them to forget the immediate past. "We liberated Iraq. And that decision has been made. It's over with and now it is time to unify for the sake of peace," Bush declared at the NATO meet. The message was clear - forget what we did to Iraq, the Europeans should now help us subdue the resistance and also share the war expenses. NATO did put up a symbolic show of unity on the Iraq issue. A modest plan was announced to train and equip Iraqi soldiers. Six NATO countries - France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Greece and Spain - have stated that they would only train Iraqi forces in a third country and have so far refused to pick up the financial tab. "The world power has determined that even its mighty military is not enough to turn an underdeveloped country like Iraq into the `youngest democracy' in the world," wrote the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung. It added that the American President's friendly tone did not change the fact that "this is the same warlord with imperial claims as before".

It was the much-hyped meeting between Bush and Putin in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, that got much of the media attention. The U.S. was determined to bring the question of "freedom" and "democracy" on to the front burner. The Russian side was equally determined to adhere to the political and economic course it has chosen. Relations between the two countries started going downhill after Moscow took a principled stand on the Iraq war. From the statements and sound-bytes emerging from Washington, it was clear that Putin was no longer the American President's "good friend". The Bush administration was critical of the way the elections were conducted in Russia in 2004 and the way the Kremlin dealt with the oligarchs and the media they controlled.

FRANKA BRUNS/AP

An anti-Bush demonstrator in Berlin.

It was therefore not surprising that President Bush chose to devote much of the half an hour he and Putin shared with the international media to cast doubts on the democratic credentials of the Russian government. A few days before his meeting with Putin, Bush had said that "democratic reforms are at the heart of our dialogue with Russia". At their joint interaction with the media in Bratislava, the two leaders tried to play down their differences but their body language showed that the old warmth between them was missing. Putin was unsmiling most of the time and his visage grew grimmer after President Bush said that he had expressed his "concerns" to his Russian counterpart. Bush went on to say that "democracies have certain things in common. They have rule of law and protection of minorities, a free press and a viable political opposition".

Putin responded by emphasising that Russia had firmly opted for democracy but he would not let the concept lead to "the collapse of the state and the impoverishment of the people". Putin elaborated by saying that democracy "should not be confused with anarchy". A Russian journalist asked Bush searching questions about the democracy, media freedom and human rights in the U.S.

Soon after the Bush-Putin summit, Russia formally signed a nuclear fuel agreement with Iran. The signing took place at the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran, which Russia is helping to build. This is another strong indicator that Russia plans to chart its own course by symbolically choosing Bushehr over Bush. Washington is also irked with the Russian decision to sell arms to Venezuela, in which country too the Bush administration wishes to institute a regime change.

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