WHY BUSH’S DIPLOMATIC DANCE CARD IS FULL
By Massimo Calabresi/Washington
ion/article/0,8599,1681715,00.html
Wednesday, Nov. 07, 2007
President George W. Bush is incredibly popular right now… with
foreign leaders. At home, of course, he’s a lame duck, and a record
50% of Americans strongly disapprove of his presidency, according to
a recent Gallup poll.
Overseas, he has taken America to historic lows among poll respondents
around the world. The war in Iraq, the rise of China and perceived
American unilateralism have diminished U.S. global influence to its
lowest level since the Cold War. But in all that bad news, smart
foreigners see an opportunity — and that explains why the President
finds himself on the receiving end of so much attention from abroad
this week.
First came Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, seeking
U.S. assistance against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq and help
advancing Turkey’s pursuit of entry into the European Union. Some might
have thought it an odd moment for Anakara’s premier to pay a courtesy
call on Washington, what with the recent recall of the Turkey’s
ambassador to Washington in protest over moves in the U.S. Congress
to label the massacre of Armenians in 1915 a genocide. And then
there are the mounting fears of a Turkish incursion into Iraq to
stop cross-border raids into southeastern Turkey by the Kurdistan
Workers Party, or PKK, which is listed by the U.S. as a terrorist
organization. But what better moment to enlist U.S. help against the
PKK than when Washington’s fears of a damaging rift with Ankara are
at their height?
And, certainly, Bush was as strong as he’s been on the matter. On
Monday he declared, "PKK is a terrorist organization. They’re an
enemy of Turkey, they’re an enemy of Iraq, and they’re an enemy of
the United States. We have talked about how we can work together to
protect ourselves from the PKK."
Bush said he had shared intelligence on the PKK with Erdogan, and
opened a direct channel between Turkey’s number two military official
and the top American commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus. The
President also spoke of cutting off the money flow to the PKK from
within Iraq. Not bad for a country that supposedly has unsteady
relations with the U.S.
Then came new French president Nicolas Sarkozy, the crafty political
operator known for exploiting his opponents weaknesses in ways they
don’t expect. A social dinner Tuesday night at the White House,
followed by a trip Wednesday to Mount Vernon set the collegial
tone. And Bush laid it on thick at a joint press conference at
Washington’s home Wednesday, saying Sarkozy had "impressed a lot of
people here on your journey," and telling the French leader that he
has "a strong set of universal values in your heart."
As some keen observers had predicted, nothing tangible came out of
the meetings. But Sarkozy still got what he came for: a burnishing
of his image as the new pivot player in U.S.-European relations —
a role left vacant by the departure of Tony Blair as prime minister
of Britain. And it’s a role whose value on the continent Sarkozy
recognizes. "What he wants is a bilateral relationship with Bush so
that he can do what Blair so often did, which is serve as a swing
between the U.S. and its European partners," says Jeremy Shapiro,
a fellow at the Brookings Institution.
At this rate, the German Prime Minister, Angela Merkel should be
showing up with a long wish list when she lands in Crawford, Texas,
on Friday, for a two-day summit with Bush. The President embarrassed
his German counterpart in her own back yard last June when he refused
to sign up for her plan to reduce global warming at the G-8 summit
in Heiligendamm. Signs of a U.S.
effort to make nice could come with some new concession on the
environment or on the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and
broader issues of human rights in the war on terrorism — another
issue of long-standing disagreement between Bush and Merkel.
Certainly, this week’s love-fest has been a two-way affair, and
Bush has his own reasons for making nice with the auslanders. Nor is
Bush lacking in tactical ability when he chooses to employ it: He is
playing Merkel and Sarkozy off each other, for example, exploiting
the tense relations between the two in the interest of pressuring
for progress on Iranian nuclear negotiations and greater help from
both in Afghanistan. But after this week’s warm and fuzzy meetings,
don’t be surprised if more and more foreign leaders realize now’s the
time to get what they want from the U.S. and start beating a path to
Bush’s door.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
