THE US:What US leader left out was of most interest, writes Mary Fitzgeraldin New York
US president George W Bush's address to the UN general assembly yesterday was more interesting for what it left out than what it left in. Starting off with a long-winded paean to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the president went on to make only the briefest of references to his two most pressing foreign policy issues - Iraq and Iran. The former he lumped in with Lebanon and Afghanistan as places where "brave citizens have made the choice for democracy, yet the extremists have responded by targeting them for murder".
The people of these three countries, he continued, have "asked for our help, and every civilized nation has a responsibility to stand with them".
While most observers expect Iran's nuclear ambitions to dominate this week's general assembly debate, Bush was content to mention the country once, and then in the same breath as Belarus, North Korea and Syria. He described the four as "brutal regimes" guilty of human rights abuses.
The contrast between this address and Bush's previous appearances in front of the general assembly could not have been stronger. While he spoke of battling tyranny and extremism during a broader rumination on human rights, there was no soaring rhetoric on spreading democracy, no mention of the so-called war on terror or al-Qaeda, and little evidence of the gung-ho attitude of old.
Instead delegates got a lecture on the need to free the world of hunger, disease, violence, illiteracy and despair - what Bush dubbed a "mission of liberation".
"The nations in this chamber have our differences," he said, prompting some wry smiles. "Yet there are some areas where we can all agree. When innocent people are trapped in a life of murder and fear, the declaration [ of human rights] is not being upheld. When millions of children starve to death or perish from a mosquito bite, we're not doing our duty in the world. When whole societies are cut off from the prosperity of the global economy, we're all worse off."
His announcement of tighter sanctions against the military junta in Burma prompted reporters to start scribbling in their notebooks, as did his support for an expanded UN Security Council, mentioning Japan as a likely contender for a permanent seat. But the rest of his speech, with its exhortations to fight Aids, malaria and poverty, overlaid with sweeping platitudes on human rights, was deemed by some to be worthy but dull. "It was much too flat," complained one delegate afterwards.
During his address, Bush urged the UN to send troops to Darfur, and reiterated his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He singled out Zimbabwe and Cuba for their human rights records, describing the Mugabe regime as an "assault" on its people, and prompting a walk-out by the Cuban delegation when he said that country was witnessing "the long rule of a cruel dictator nearing its end".
Insisting the US was committed to a "strong and vibrant" UN, he went on to criticise the organisation's year-old human rights council for what he described as its "failures". The US Senate recently voted to cut off funding to the council, complaining it had focused most of its attention on Israel. Bush repeated those accusations yesterday, calling for reform of the body.
While most delegates spoke at length about the threat of climate change - UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon referred to it in his opening address as one of the "daunting challenges" facing the world - Bush made just a passing reference to the issue, pointing out he had convened a meeting on global warming in Washington later this week.