ARAB EX-KNESSET MEMBER HIGHLIGHTS DIMINISHING US ROLE IN WORLD AFFAIRS
By Elias Sakr and Eugene Yukin

Daily Star
Sept 10 2008
Lebanon

BEIRUT: The world’s changing power dynamics during the Bush
administration era were the focus of a lecture by former Arab-Israeli
MP Azmi Bishara before a full audience at Hamra’s Al-Madina Theater
on Monday evening. In his lecture – entitled "What’s the role for
America after Bush?" – Bishara noted that the United States remains
the world’s sole superpower but has seen its role diminish since 2005
with the emergence of Russia and China among other countries as rising
world powers willing to guard their interests.

Bishara said this change in the world’s power dynamics began in the
late 1990s before it was brought to a halt following the September 11,
2001, attacks.

According to Bishara, US military spending, which constitutes 45
percent of total global expenditure on armament and only 4 percent
of the country’s gross domestic product, enforces its status as a
super power.

Bishara highlighted the Russia-Georgia crisis as an indication of
Moscow’s determination to firmly defend its interests.

"The process of regaining that sense of national pride and greatness
started in 1999 when [Prime Minister] Vladimir Putin harshly crushed
all opposition in Chechnya, making it clear Russia wouldn’t tolerate
any independence movement," he said, adding that China also guarded
its interests in Sudan recently by opposing US foreign policy.

Bishara noted that China’s disregard for human rights by enforcing
child labor and its harm to the environment resembles Europe’s history
during the rise of colonialism.

He stressed that unlike the Cold War period, today’s confrontations
between the United States and other rising powers indicate conflicting
interests, not ideologies.

"Today no one claims that he’s trying to spread an ideology aiming
to better humanity, fight evil and preserve the welfare of people,
it’s only a matter of interests," said Bishara.

Furthermore, he added that before 2005 the American neoconservatives
had embraced the communist view of spreading change around the world
and claimed "nation building" as a pretext to change foreign regimes
by force.

Bishara also emphasized that the globalization process had bad
consequences on developing countries.

"Economic help brought by capitalist states to Third World countries
on condition of imposing reforms such as privatization and tax-barrier
abolition was of disastrous results," he said.

Given the dreadful position of Arab countries on the political
and economic map, Bishara blamed the lack of strategic planning by
the Arab world’s leaders and urged them to care for their nation’s
interests as the sole means to bring positive change and growth.

Bishara pointed to Turkey’s recent efforts to reconcile with Armenia
and Azerbaijan in order to build a new oil pipeline reaching the
Mediterranean Sea without the need to pass though Russia’s territory.

"Turkey presents an example that Arab states should follow," he said.

Following his visit to Syria in 2006 Bishara was charged by Israeli
prosecutors with treason and espionage.

He fled Israel in April 2007 amid allegations that he had advised
Hizbullah and met with foreign agents during the summer 2006 war
in Lebanon.

Bishara denied spying for Hizbullah and recalled his criticism of
the group’s shelling of Arab villages in Israel.

Bishara, who headed the small National Democratic Assembly (Balad)
party, was Israel’s first Arab citizen to run for the post of premier
in 1999.

Concerning the upcoming US presidential elections, Bishara said he
believed that an Obama victory would not lead to any significant
changes regarding American policy toward the Arab world and the
Palestinians.

Bishara’s lecture was the first in a series of gatherings that
Al-Madina Theater is organizing this month to commemorate the 60th
anniversary of the Nakba. The events will include a movie screening
and a poetry night.