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[bryant]

The theme of US policy over the last few days, despite Bush's tough talk in the State of the Union, has in fact been multilateralism. (Which is driving some people nuts.) I think the most important speech delivered in the last week was by Colin Powell at Davos. That's the administration speaking for an international audience, not for a US audience, and that's where we need to look for the administration's real position.

Powell's speech directly addressed the concerns that (as I've said here) are the real reason we haven't seen an international coalition forming to dethrone Saddam. "Afghanistan's leaders and Afghanistan's people know that they can trust America to do just this, to do the right thing. The people of Bosnia, the people of Kosovo, of Macedonia -- they too know that they can trust us to do our jobs and then leave." I.e., we're not going into Iraq in order to set up a satrapy.

Good. Those are the words the world needs to hear. I don't know if I've been wrong and that's been the policy all along, or if Bush has decided it's not worth pushing too hard, or if this is just a smokescreen. I think the latter is least likely. I hope the first is true. Either way, I'm very pleased to see us addressing the real concerns. Let's stop pretending that opposition to the specifics of the war is equivalent to support for Saddam. Those two stances are sometimes linked, but they are not always linked.

Powell also said what needed to be said about Euro-American relations. "Differences are inevitable, but differences should not be equated with American unilateralism or American arrogance. Sometimes differences are just that -- differences. On occasion, our experiences, our interests, will lead us to see things in a different way. For our part, we will not join a consensus if we believe it compromises our core principles. Nor would we expect any other nation to join in a consensus that would compromise its core principles." You can have differences with America without being an enemy. No more of this "You're with us or against us" crap. Thank you.

This also leaves open the possibility that the US may disagree with core principles. He didn't say "we're your friends no matter what." That, to me, is the right stance. It's not unconditional alliance, but it's not alliance based on obedience no matter what.

He said a lot of other good, intelligent things too, but I'll leave those for another day, or go read it yourself. It was an excellent speech. It's kind of sad how much time we all spent poring over the State of the Union, considering that Powell's speech was almost as important, and it's been all but ignored. I'm especially pleased that he didn't forget about Indian and Pakistan, and I call your particular attention to his acknowledgement that NGOs are conducting their own foreign policy.

Onward. The big news this morning was the open letter signed by eight European nations. I find this heartening. It would not have happened unless the US had been engaging in serious diplomacy behind the scenes, and it represents a move towards accord. Again: it would not be happening if Bush didn't want, for whatever reason, to gain multilateral consensus on this war.

And, finally, Powell is going to drop by the Security Council on the 5th to present evidence -- as I, and others, have been saying needs to happen. These aren't the actions of a country that doesn't care what anyone else thinks. These are the words and actions of a country that understands the necessity for trust and multilateral action vis a vis Iraq. It's about time, and it is not too late.

Comments

[point5b.livejournal.com]

Geeze, when den Beste melts down, he melts down, doesn't he? His follow-up (http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/01/Sleepingonit.shtml) was a lot more temperate, though. I'm a bit surprised that he took the speech so badly at first, as it's pretty much what I thought Bush was going to say, aside from massive African AIDS relief and hydrogen cars.

As much as I'll applaud the virtues of doing something right whether or not anyone else is willing to lend a hand, Bush has been building a coalition (or at least support) against Iraq since late 2001 or early 2002. Variants on "How many countries before they stop calling it 'unilateral'?" have been a running gag in hawk blogs for months. On the other hand, coalitions not made up of UNSC members don't determine UNSC votes. I expect the US to present a damning case to the UN, but I think the UNSC will most likely vote against acting. Then the war starts, and we all cross our fingers. :/

By the by, I owe you an update on the whole Germany-and-France-arming-Iraq-after-1991 issue:

I haven't had much luck finding any references to post-1991 French involvement. I suspect, the more I look, that I was completely wrong to reference France in the issue. The worse (though, from all accounts, vague) accusations aimed at France have been involvement in Iraqi oil smuggling. That's not great if it's true, but such activity has happened in many nations. They do seem addicted to so-called "Oil for Food" trading, but that's public and above-board.

On the other hand, Germany appears to be having a media furor over what seems to be its widespread corporate involvement with the Iraqi military and its government's quiet tolerance of such activities even after the Gulf War. Many of the accusations revolve around dual-use technologies. Annoyingly, there seem to be conflicting spins on some of the details, depending on the secondary English-languages source you read. I'd read the original reports that had come out in Die Tageszeitung, aber meine Duetsche ist nicht zehr gut. Lousy high-school German classes... :P

BBC report (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2712903.stm) on convictions yesterday in the "supergun case", as well as on German/Iraq involvement in general. I think this was the story that had stuck in the back of my mind, since the trial started in December and the general case struck me as familiar.
"Last December, Tageszeitung newspaper reported that over 80 German companies were listed in Iraq's weapons report to the UN. Several of these were still involved in Iraq last year, thereby breaking the UN weapons embargo. Of further embarrassment to Germany is that - according to the newspaper article - German companies make up more than half of the total number of institutions listed in the report."

I haven't seen any information on comparitive amounts of investment in these projects, but the breadth and depth of such involvemnt is startling.

Deutsche Welle's similar report (http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1430_A_716376_1_A,00.html)
"In some cases, conventional military and technical dealings between Germany and Iraq are said to date till 2001, ten years after the second Gulf war and a time when international sanctions against Saddam Hussein are still in place. The paper reports that the dossier contains several indications of cases, where German authorities right up to the Finance Ministry tolerated the illegal arms cooperation and also promoted to it to an extent."

Cautious Guardian report (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,861902,00.html)

The Memory Hole (http://www.thememoryhole.org/corp/iraq-suppliers.htm), a site I'm not much familiar with and admittedly a bit wary of, gives a list of non-German companies involved and links to a few stories in more major media.

More will undoubtedly surface and inaccuracies get corrected in time. Now I must sleep.