Boston Globe Editorial - An anti-Bush alliance
Boston Globe Editorial - An anti-Bush alliance
Copyright by The Boston Globe
THURSDAY, MAY 25, 2006
Countries large and small are rejecting President George W. Bush's foreign policy by intimidation and are banding together to counter the U.S. superpower. The next example may come from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional grouping that is considering adding Iran to its membership.
The Bush administration pretended to ignore last year's organization summit meeting, at which the members - China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan - called for the United States to withdraw the troops it had stationed in Central Asia for the war in Afghanistan. But the organization's foreign ministers' meeting in Shanghai last week discussed a plan to accept four new members: India, Pakistan, Mongolia and Iran. After that meeting, Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, announced that Iran's belligerent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would be attending a summit meeting of the group on June 15 in Shanghai. That should get the Bush administration's attention.
Acceptance of Iran by the organization at the very moment when the Islamic Republic is defying the International Atomic Energy Agency portends a dramatic new stage of strategic coordination between Russia and China. The purpose is to give form to a common policy of resisting what the governments in Beijing and Moscow have come to see as an aggressive, overbearing America.
Ironically, this is precisely what President George W. Bush has pledged to prevent. The national security doctrine that Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have proclaimed was meant to discourage any combination of countries from mounting a challenge to the United States. But instead of inciting awe and submission, the policies associated with administration hawks are motivating countries in Eurasia, the Middle East and Latin America to seek cooperation against U.S. hegemony.
Enlargement of the Shanghai grouping would be the most telling collective response yet. The new members envisaged by the organization would not only bring together major exporters of oil and gas, Russia and Iran, with the fast-growing energy consumers China and India. Having Iran inside an expanded Shanghai Cooperation Organization would only make Tehran more impervious to U.S. and European efforts to deflect Iran from its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
It did not have to be this way. After Sept. 11, China and Russia were eager to cooperate with Washington in deposing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and mounting a world- wide struggle against Al Qaeda and affiliated groups. But Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have repeatedly acted as though they could ignore the interests and sensitivities of their counterterrorist partners without eventually provoking a negative reaction.
Copyright by The Boston Globe
THURSDAY, MAY 25, 2006
Countries large and small are rejecting President George W. Bush's foreign policy by intimidation and are banding together to counter the U.S. superpower. The next example may come from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional grouping that is considering adding Iran to its membership.
The Bush administration pretended to ignore last year's organization summit meeting, at which the members - China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan - called for the United States to withdraw the troops it had stationed in Central Asia for the war in Afghanistan. But the organization's foreign ministers' meeting in Shanghai last week discussed a plan to accept four new members: India, Pakistan, Mongolia and Iran. After that meeting, Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, announced that Iran's belligerent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would be attending a summit meeting of the group on June 15 in Shanghai. That should get the Bush administration's attention.
Acceptance of Iran by the organization at the very moment when the Islamic Republic is defying the International Atomic Energy Agency portends a dramatic new stage of strategic coordination between Russia and China. The purpose is to give form to a common policy of resisting what the governments in Beijing and Moscow have come to see as an aggressive, overbearing America.
Ironically, this is precisely what President George W. Bush has pledged to prevent. The national security doctrine that Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have proclaimed was meant to discourage any combination of countries from mounting a challenge to the United States. But instead of inciting awe and submission, the policies associated with administration hawks are motivating countries in Eurasia, the Middle East and Latin America to seek cooperation against U.S. hegemony.
Enlargement of the Shanghai grouping would be the most telling collective response yet. The new members envisaged by the organization would not only bring together major exporters of oil and gas, Russia and Iran, with the fast-growing energy consumers China and India. Having Iran inside an expanded Shanghai Cooperation Organization would only make Tehran more impervious to U.S. and European efforts to deflect Iran from its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
It did not have to be this way. After Sept. 11, China and Russia were eager to cooperate with Washington in deposing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and mounting a world- wide struggle against Al Qaeda and affiliated groups. But Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have repeatedly acted as though they could ignore the interests and sensitivities of their counterterrorist partners without eventually provoking a negative reaction.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 7:26 AM
1 Comments:
Another great anti-Bush alliance is that of South America. Most countries voted-in leftist presidents and they are joining politically and financially to oppose u.s. control in the region.
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