- The Observer,
- Sunday January 20, 2002
On today's first anniversary of his inauguration as President, George Bush avoids easy categorisation. True, his political instincts are deeply conservative, unilateralist and domestically self-interested. His irresponsible tax giveaways and his proximity to the sleaze engulfing the collapse of Enron might endanger his political future. Yet in the greatest challenge to an American President since the Cuban missile crisis, the attacks of 11 September, Mr Bush has emerged as more subtle and flexible than many might have expected. He has built an international consensus for a war on terrorism that has, thus far, negotiated a minefield of potential disasters. He has fought a restrained war of limited ambitions, restoring the possibility of peace to a country that many of those who voted for him would have been hard pushed to pick out on the map.
Despite the threats by hawks in his administration that America will extend the war to Iraq and Somalia, Mr Bush has also thus far shown restraint. He has preferred to rely on the threat of action rather than its realisation. It is a mark of the significant influence of Tony Blair and his colleagues in the European Union that they have managed to steer the juggernaut of US power in key areas of American foreign policy to apply a kind of European veto. Now, however, that relationship faces its greatest challenge. Amid evidence that on the issue of the Afghan prisoners Mr Powell has been sidelined by the hawkish Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Mr Blair has his work cut out to persuade America to behave in line with the norms of international law. But that does not mean that it is not worth trying, even at the risk of offending Britain's closest ally. It is important because if America, the world's remaining superpower, abandons the primacy of international law then it gives a green light to human rights-abusing nations.
It is important that Mr Blair and Europe win this battle. It will demonstrate to the world that American power is participant in the international conversation, not simply the voice that gets what it wants because it shouts loudest and packs the biggest punch.
The character of the Bush administration is a matter of global interest precisely because it has global reach. But those who believe that even the mildest criticism is anti-American make the same mistake as those on the Left who characterise the US as a monolithic, imperialist evil force. It is not that, but neither is it a monolithic force for good.
If we want enlightened global interventions, ranging from international policing to policies on aid and global warming, Britain has to be part of the coalition that will bring them about. That means being ready to oppose policies of the Bush administration we don't like and being supportive of those forces in American politics with which we agree. To be selective and realistic does not mean being anti-American.
It is the mark of a friend to dramatise the failings of our closest ally, even at the danger of causing offence. That means a real readiness to stand up and be counted in the quest for a better world.
