Author: Editorial
Publication: Dawn, Karachi
Date: December 24, 2000
In a country where foreign
policy has traditionally been bipartisan, the coming of a new president
has seldom meant a radical departure from the past. Whether during
the worst days of the cold war or later after the demise of the Soviet
Union, American foreign policy has maintained its essentially bipartisan
character, the difference here and there being mostly of shades, nuances
and emphasis. Against this background, one should not hold high hopes
that the Bush administration would in any way be much different from the
Clinton presidency. However, Friday's remarks by the president-elect
that he intends to follow a 'non-interventionist' foreign policy call for
attention. More important, he said in its external relations America
would be "humble" and added, "we should not be prescribing prescriptions
for others." Indirectly, these remarks constitute an apt criticism of the
eight years of Democratic foreign policy that had been characterized by
interventionism, prescription of unwanted nostrums for other nations, meddling
in the internal affairs of other countries and a lack of humility bordering
on arrogance.
It goes without saying
that many nations do not see eye to eye with America on issues of international
import. Even America's partners in the Atlantic community have reservations
about aspects of US foreign policy on such issues as the Arab-Israeli conflict,
Iraq and Iran and the sanctions against China. So far, both Republican
and Democratic administrations have used sanctions brazenly as an instrument
of chastisement - though with little effect. Rather, in most cases,
sanctions evoked feelings of widespread hatred against the US and boomeranged
on Washington because the victims of the sanctions stayed on course.
For instance, nuclear and missile non- proliferation is a major concern
of American foreign policy, but US sanctions against Pakistan, India and
China have failed to deter them from following a course which they think
is in their best interest.
More important, sanctions
on an issue like non- proliferation are laughable - even immoral - given
the fact that Washington has done everything possible to not only condone
Israel's acquisition of nuclear weapons but to actively help and encourage
it. Similarly, far from applying sanctions against Israel, the US
has exercised its veto whenever the UN Council tried to censure Tel Aviv
for its illegal occupation of the territories and its human rights' violations
against Palestinian civilians. One brutal example of America's sanctions
strategy is evident in Iraq where the US-led UN embargoes have led to one
of post-war world's biggest humanitarian disasters. Babies are dying
for a lack of medicines because of the sanctions, even though all of Iraq's
clandestine projects for weapons of mass destruction stand destroyed.
Terrorism is also one
of America's obsessions, yet Washington has been selective in its opposition
to it, for it has ignored or even encouraged state terrorism - as in Indian-held
Kashmir and occupied Palestine - but called as terrorists those fighting
for freedom as in Kashmir and Palestine. The latest example of America's
sanctions-oriented strategy is Afghanistan, where the US has decided to
deny arms only to one side in a six-year- old civil war. These aspects
of US foreign policy had anything but humility and circumspection in them.
If, therefore, Mr Bush decides to follow a humble and non- interventionist
foreign policy, one only hopes he will abide by his resolve.
By its biased and skewed
policy America has not gained any friends in this part of the world.
Its blindly pro- Israeli policies have alienated it from people from the
Persian Gulf to the Atlantic, while in South Asia it is perceived by many
to be on the wrong side on Kashmir by denying itself a constructive role
in bringing Pakistan and India to the negotiating table for a solution
of the Kashmir dispute. Overall, America will itself be the gainer
if, under the Bush administration, it manages to curb superpower chauvinism
and sheds the arrogance it usually displays in dealing with other nations
and governments.
