a_unique_person
13th November 2003, 09:18 PM
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/13/1068674314219.html?from=storyrhs
Pretty lucid and conservative assessment of Bush and his problems.
One of Australia's most respected international analysts says the Howard Government has aligned itself too closely with the US, Tony Parkinson writes.
As a close ally of the United States, the Howard Government should have done more to stop the superpower pursuing its radical vision to remake the world, according to one of Australia's most respected international analysts, Owen Harries.
Professor Harries, a senior foreign policy adviser in the Fraser years and a prominent conservative voice in the global strategic debate, said it was "unfortunate" the Howard Government had aligned itself too closely with US policy on Iraq, and that a better approach would have been to act as a "modest restraining influence" on the Bush Administration.
Instead, Australia had raised expectations in Washington that it would remain an uncritical and active supporter of the "highly questionable" doctrine of pre-emption.
"If you can be taken for granted, you will be taken for granted," he said. "No country should allow itself to be taken for granted."
.............
"I am a pro-American who believes the present policy is unwise and unsuccessful."
Since the early 1990s, when the US became the sole superpower, Professor Harries has found himself at the heart of the debate in Washington over policy directions in a new and uncertain era.
The belief that the US could serve as a model for the rest of the world was not in dispute. The divisions arose over whether America should lead by example only, or by adopting the more assertive vision of the neo-conservatives, who favoured deploying all facets of US power to create a world "safe for democracy" - a world more in America's image.
After what Professor Harries regards as the foreign policy failures of the Clinton years (he dismisses the former president as a "connoisseur of opinion polls"), frustration in Washington over the listless drift of US foreign policy was to open the door to the bristling energy and idealism of the neo-cons, who he credits as "intellectually, probably the smartest people in American politics".
Although he does not go as far as to say the neo-cons represented an agenda looking for a provocation, he believes the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington allowed them to "seize the moment". He has no quarrel with the Bush Administration's decision to order strikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan: "That had to be done."
It was what came next that unnerved him. Professor Harries stressed that he was talking not just about intervention in Iraq, but rather the wider ramifications of the National Security Strategy released by the Bush Administration in September 2002 - a document he describes as the "most important statement of American foreign policy since the enunciation of the Truman Doctrine in 1947".
Pretty lucid and conservative assessment of Bush and his problems.
One of Australia's most respected international analysts says the Howard Government has aligned itself too closely with the US, Tony Parkinson writes.
As a close ally of the United States, the Howard Government should have done more to stop the superpower pursuing its radical vision to remake the world, according to one of Australia's most respected international analysts, Owen Harries.
Professor Harries, a senior foreign policy adviser in the Fraser years and a prominent conservative voice in the global strategic debate, said it was "unfortunate" the Howard Government had aligned itself too closely with US policy on Iraq, and that a better approach would have been to act as a "modest restraining influence" on the Bush Administration.
Instead, Australia had raised expectations in Washington that it would remain an uncritical and active supporter of the "highly questionable" doctrine of pre-emption.
"If you can be taken for granted, you will be taken for granted," he said. "No country should allow itself to be taken for granted."
.............
"I am a pro-American who believes the present policy is unwise and unsuccessful."
Since the early 1990s, when the US became the sole superpower, Professor Harries has found himself at the heart of the debate in Washington over policy directions in a new and uncertain era.
The belief that the US could serve as a model for the rest of the world was not in dispute. The divisions arose over whether America should lead by example only, or by adopting the more assertive vision of the neo-conservatives, who favoured deploying all facets of US power to create a world "safe for democracy" - a world more in America's image.
After what Professor Harries regards as the foreign policy failures of the Clinton years (he dismisses the former president as a "connoisseur of opinion polls"), frustration in Washington over the listless drift of US foreign policy was to open the door to the bristling energy and idealism of the neo-cons, who he credits as "intellectually, probably the smartest people in American politics".
Although he does not go as far as to say the neo-cons represented an agenda looking for a provocation, he believes the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington allowed them to "seize the moment". He has no quarrel with the Bush Administration's decision to order strikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan: "That had to be done."
It was what came next that unnerved him. Professor Harries stressed that he was talking not just about intervention in Iraq, but rather the wider ramifications of the National Security Strategy released by the Bush Administration in September 2002 - a document he describes as the "most important statement of American foreign policy since the enunciation of the Truman Doctrine in 1947".