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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 26 Oct. - 1 Nov. 2000 Issue No. 505 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 26 Oct. - 1 Nov. 2000 Issue No. 505
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Palestine International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Wheat from the chaff
By Ibrahim Nafie
In US presidential elections domestic issues invariably take centre stage in the bid to win votes, and it is over these issues that candidates differ most markedly. Foreign policy questions, by contrast, tend to hover somewhere on the margins. Indeed, for the most part, American voters know and care little about the candidates' foreign affairs record or expertise and are unconcerned when they learn that a presidential candidate does not know, for example, such basic information as the names of the leaders of the countries within the American geopolitical sphere. This does not mean, however, that the contestants will not try to turn foreign policy issues to their advantage, especially when addressing particular interest groups.
Within these parameters then, the most controversial foreign policy issues in the US presidential race today, the second to take place after the end of the Cold War, revolve around perceived threats to America's leadership of the current world order. There has been a growing consensus among US strategic analysts that the greatest menace to US interests, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, comes from "rebel states," the term used in Washington to refer to regimes in Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, Libya and Cuba. Related concerns are the perils of religious and ethnic wars, terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
While the US presidential candidates are not poles apart on any foreign policy issue, there are certain delineating positions. Perhaps the clearest discrepancy in outlook can be found in their respective stances towards Russia and China. Democratic candidate Al Gore supports the move away from Cold War attitudes towards the development of strategic partnerships with these countries. The interests of Washington and its allies, he holds, can be better promoted by developing a vast network of mutual links with Moscow and Peking thereby placing Washington in a better position to influence their policies. Republican candidate George Bush continues to favor displays of strength and the tactics of confrontation as a means to sap these powers' energies, rendering them less capable of challenging US policy.
There is a certain consistency between these positions and the candidates' stances on the controversial anti-ballistic missile defence shield (NMD). Gore is of the opinion that this programme aims primarily to counter any threat from the "rebel states," the potential of which would not become a reality before another 15 years or so, by which time diplomatic efforts to curb their ballistic missiles build up would render the NMD redundant. The Republican candidate holds that the NMD was conceived to counter the threat from nations that already possess missiles capable of targeting the US, pointing to China and Russia in particular, and therefore urges immediate implementation of the programme.
The lines of demarcation between the candidates are also evident in their stances on the authority of the UN. While Gore believes that Washington should seek a prior UN mandate before acting, Bush contends that the US should reserve its freedom of movement, regardless of the appropriate UN channels. Paradoxically, it would seem, the democratic candidate believes that the right to humanitarian intervention should be elevated to a political and moral "imperative," a policy that extends from Clinton's experience in the Balkans and his moves to intervene as peacemaker in other areas. To the Republican candidate, such notions are "idealistic." Washington, he says, should not embroil itself in areas where it does not have immediate interests, and emphatically not in "missions without an end."
On other foreign policy issues, however, the candidate's positions converge to the point of distraction, and it is not surprising that the focus here is the Middle East. Both candidates hold that Israel, in spite of the atrocities it perpetrates against the Palestinian people, is "a bastion of western democracy in the Middle East" and a strategic ally of the US whose quantitative and qualitative military superiority must be maintained. If there are minor discrepancies in their attitudes, these pale against both candidates' total disregard for the anger with which the Arab world has responded to the massacres of Palestinian civilians.
Both candidates also support continuing the blockade of Iraq. If the Republican candidate's father had waged the Gulf War and ended his term of office to the tune of air strikes on Iraq, his Democratic successor, and Gore's mentor, began his term with orders for new raids. Neither candidate, therefore, is about to depart from the general tenor of US policy towards Iraq.
Of course, all talk of future US foreign policy is still academic. Regardless of campaign promises, when a president elect moves into the Oval Office events become the primary determinant of his actions and political party distinctions tend to blur. In 1991 George Bush, contrary to the Republicans' inclination to bypass the UN, sought a mandate from the international body before taking action in Kuwait. Clinton, in spite of the general principles of his party, did exactly the reverse when it came to intervening in Yugoslavia.
Of course, differences between the Democratic and Republican candidates with regard to Israel do not even enter into play, apart from their attempts to outbid one another in pledges to give Israel all the support it asks for and to be tough on the "enemies of Israel." It, therefore, came as no surprise that neither candidate uttered a word of censure against Israel during the recent condemnation of its excessive use of force by virtually the entire Security Council. One can only hope that the messages delivered to the US by the Arab world and the international community will alert them to the dangers Washington's unmitigated bias for Israel holds for the interests and international image of the US.
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