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Albright Rips Bush's Foreign Policy Ahead of Troubled Europe Trip
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"This
split personality [of the Bush administration] is also evident
in Afghanistan … and in the Middle East,” said Albright.
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WASHINGTON,
May 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Two days before U.S.
President George W. Bush's departure for Europe, loaded with points of
disagreements with his European allies, former U.S. secretary of state
Madeleine Albright delivered a scathing sendoff, accusing Bush’s
foreign policy team of suffering from "untreated bipolar
disorder."
In an apparent break with the tradition of rallying behind the
President ahead of a major foreign trip, Albright said Sunday, May 19,
in Medford, Massachusetts, it was sometimes difficult for her to see
cohesion in the Bush administration's foreign policy, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"Because on some important issues, the Bush foreign policy team
seems to be suffering from untreated bipolar disorder," said
Albright, who served in the administration of former President Bill
Clinton, in her commencement address at the Fletcher School of Law and
Diplomacy at Tufts University.
"They talk about the importance of our alliances in Europe and
Asia and then fail to employ our alliances on matters of mutual
security concern.
"They advocate a more open system of world trade, while imposing
protectionist measures on steel, and backing vastly increased
subsidies for America's corporate farms,” she said.
Bush
heads to Europe Wednesday, May 22, with his hands tied by
protectionist measures he adopted for electoral reasons at the risk of
sparking a transatlantic trade war and imperiling the globalization he
has championed.
Since March, the U.S. president has decided to increase by 30 percent
"anti-dumping" customs tariffs on steel imports from many
countries and to sign a bill granting generous subsidies to U.S.
farmers.
These decisions appear crucial for Republicans in November's
congressional elections, in which Bush seeks to regain the majority in
the Senate and maintain Republican control of the House of
Representatives.
All of this could be decided in a handful of states with a heavy
concentration of steel plants as well as in the farm belt.
"Bush decided to put a political objective above the health of
the U.S. economy and over the principle of free trade," said Jeff
Schott, an economist with the Institute for International Economics.
In the short term, the decision on steel could spark a trade dispute
with Europe which has threatened to retaliate against U.S. products
without even waiting for a ruling by the World Trade Organization
(WTO).
Analysts fear this situation could escalate into a tariff war between
the United States and Europe, the world's two trade superpowers.
But in the long term, the farm bill signed by Bush last week
represents a greater threat to trade liberalization, which Washington
has been pushing since the end of the Cold War.
"There is a big risk the farm bill will encourage production in
the U.S., depressing the world prices even more," said Schott.
"That's what we have been complaining about European policy for a
long time and now the U.S. are doing the same thing."
The farm bill runs counter to commitments endorsed by Washington
during a new round of trade talks launched in November 2001 in Doha,
Qatar, according to Schott.
The objective of Doha is to negotiate a reduction of agricultural
subsidies in rich countries. Those subsidies penalize agricultural
exports by poor nations that are key to their development.
In
return for reduced subsidies by rich countries, poor countries are
supposed to open their markets to goods and services from the
industrialized world.
"For
the developing countries, it [the bill] shows that the U.S., the
leader of trade liberalization, is not up to its commitment and so
they will be discouraged to open up their markets," Schott said.
The International Monetary Fund, World Bank and WTO, in a statement
released in Paris last week, expressed their strong opposition to
protectionism without naming the United States.
"Any increase in protectionism by any country is damaging,"
the three institutions said.
"Such action will hurt growth prospects where fostering growth is
most essential. And they are sending the wrong signal, threatening to
undermine the ability of governments everywhere to build support for
market-oriented reforms."
The only hope for Bush at this stage to reclaim the torch of free
trader is to win from Congress so-called trade promotion authority
that would allow him to negotiate trade agreements without fear that
Congress will amend them.
In
addition to visiting Germany, France and Russia, Bush will also take
part in a NATO summit in Italy.
Albright
continued her strong criticism of the U.S. president’s foreign
policy team. "They warn about the dangers posed by ballistic
missiles, but needlessly delayed negotiations with North Korea on how
to reduce that very threat."
The former U.S. secretary of state also took issue with Bush's
policies in the Middle East and Afghanistan, his stance on human
rights, as well as his abandonment of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and an
accord setting up the International Criminal Court.
"They talk about the importance of the rule of law, but seem
allergic to treaties designed to strengthen the rule of law in areas
such as money laundering, biological weapons, crimes against humanity,
and the environment," she said.
"They criticize Cuba's lack of democracy, while praising
autocrats from Malaysia and other lands.
"This split personality is also evident in Afghanistan, where one
day they are ridiculing nation-building and the next proposing a new
Marshall Plan; and in the Middle East, where the signals they have
sent have varied day by day.
"The root of the problem is that one half the administration
truly believes in ... international diplomacy and law; while the other
half is less convinced," Albright concluded.
"They see alliances and agreements not as platforms for progress,
but rather as restraints that may hold America back or tie America
down."
Bush,
meanwhile, travels to Europe this week with a handful of disagreements
with Europeans.
Iraq
is in top of the list. Europeans and Russia remain worried by the
risks of U.S. military attacks against Baghdad as part of the
so-called anti-terror war. Bush has recently reduced his public
denunciations of Iraq, even though the ouster of Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein remains a goal of his administration, to facilitate
negotiations on revised sanctions recently adopted by the United
Nations and so as not to complicate his efforts to mediate the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Then comes the Middle East. Europeans were relieved by Bush's recent
efforts to become more involved in mediating an end to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Washington's decision to involve the
European Union, Russia and the U.N. more actively in the peace process
through an international conference.
However, the Bush administration seems to have trouble crafting a
global peace plan and is downplaying the significance of the
conference.
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Bush
heads to Europe, his hands tied by protectionist measures he
adopted for electoral reasons at the risk of sparking a
transatlantic trade war.
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Climate
issue also ranks high on the list of disagreements. Washington and
Europe remain at odds over the Kyoto protocol on global warming, which
European nations have accepted and the Bush administration refuses to
ratify.
In light of these disagreements and the public exchange of criticism,
more recent of which was Powell’s hitback at what he termed as
“Europe’s bashing of U.S. war on terror”, Bush’s visit is
expected to be noisy, to put it mildly.
British
daily newspaper, The Times, in its online edition Monday, May 20,
quoted German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder as saying Sunday that
German demonstrators who use violence to try to disrupt Bush’s visit
to Berlin this week will face the full force of the police.
The
German Chancellor issued the warning in the hope of avoiding a
politically embarrassing outburst of anti-American anger. Other
politicians also urged Social Democrats and Greens to think again
before taking part even in peaceful protests against Bush.
About
10,000 police are on alert after receiving warnings that
anti-American, anti- Israeli and anti-globalization groups across
Europe intend to stage the most violent spectacle since the World
Economic Summit in Genoa.
Bush
arrives in Berlin Wednesday night before traveling on to Moscow. His
hotel is next to the Brandenburg Gate, minutes from the Reichstag,
where he will deliver a speech, and from the Chancellery and a
restaurant where he is to dine informally with Herr and Frau Schröder.
From
today that area will be the most densely monitored square kilometer in
Europe: the airspace will be closed and the sewers patrolled. Already
snipers have set up positions on the rooftops. “People who confuse
the right to demonstrate with rioting will face the hard counter-force
of the police,” the Chancellor said in an interview Sunday.
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