George W. Bush's New Moral Clarity Could Pay Off for Canadians

In the ebb and flow of international politics, the current low tide in American foreign policy in Iraq may well bring on a period of constructive convergence between the United States and its major allies. I am not talking about a Bush defeat or Washington adopting the soft power doctrine favoured by the Liberal government in Ottawa. The convergence is in the first place based on the fact that George W. Bush has redefined the international agenda. In Henry Kissinger’s terms, Bush turned the United States after 9/11 into a revolutionary great power. The status quo of passive nuclear deterrence and lame arms control treaties was thrown out. Instead, Bush defined international terrorism, aggressive rogue states with ambitions for weapons of mass destruction as the new threat. To deal with it, the United States made clear it could not simply rely on defence, deterrence and containment. Bush added to the old arsenal counterproliferation, interdiction, and preemption. Russia was willing to let the Americans get out of the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty and made common cause in the war against radical militant Islam. Even Europe has now acknowledged that international terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and failing dictatorships are the most important threat. Its foreign policy czar, Javier Solana, recently issued a paper (‘A Secure Europe in a Better World’) that reads like a cautious version of Bush’s National Security Strategy released in the fall of 2002. He sees the same threats and urges the European Union to use “effective multilateralism.” Solana wants Europe ready to act when the rules are broken. Beside peacekeeping, that may mean “joint disarmament operations” and “support for third countries in combating terrorism.”

The second reason why more cooperation is around the corner is the fact that in Iraq the Bush Administration has hit a brick wall. Now is the first time in the life of the administration that it is seriously engaged in finding compromises with key allies on vital interests. Iran is a case in point. Washington is happy to watch the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany shuttle between Europe and Teheran, using their best coercive diplomacy to get Iran to comply with the International Atomic Energy Agency’s rules and renounce its nuclear weapon program. Now Washington seeks a solution in Iran short of another American preemptive action. Bush is keen to give more mandate to the United Nations in Iraq and to the emerging Iraqi government not only to get peacekeeping and financial assistance, but also to scale back U.S. commitments. In North Korea, Bush has been blatantly multilateralist, insisting that the Chinese among others must be full players at the table.

In his first term, Ronald Reagan had to knock heads to get the status quo Europeans and Canada to see that the USSR was an evil empire and that Solidarity in Poland needed unambiguous help from the West. He pushed for missile modernization to keep the West stronger than the rest. All that helped sink the Soviet system of tyranny. Bush has the moral clarity of Reagan. After Iraq, he will be wiser and more experienced to train that clarity on bringing key players along a bit more slowly as he moves the West forward to stand against the latest forms of terror and tyranny.

Why is this also good news for Canada? Because it means that the United States will assume more broad-based leadership on a new global agenda that was badly in need of clarity. American-European strategic convergence means Canadian foreign policy can join a coalition and stop looking for fringe issues. Badly needed reinvestment in Canadian military resources can then be explained in terms of effective multilateralism under American leadership.