US: US strategy comes in for criticism, writes Patrick Smyth, Washington Correspondent
With the US President on the other side of the globe, the Vice-President, Mr Dick Cheney, has been out of his "undisclosed location" reassuring the country that there is still someone at the helm. And, in his usual robust way, making waves.
"A few of our friends in Europe are hesitant to join in condemning what the President has called the 'axis of evil' states and terrorist allies arming to threaten the peace of the world, but the evidence is compelling," he told Jay Leno on the Tonight Show.
The problem is that, although there is undoubtedly evidence that Iraq, Iran and North Korea are seeking weapons of mass destruction, evidence of their link to terrorism, and specifically September 11th, is far from compelling.
According to the State Department's most recent "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report, North Korea's primary link to terrorism is its refusal to hand over some Japanese Communists who hijacked an airliner in 1970.
Even Iraq, according to the report, "has not attempted an anti-Western terrorist attack since its failed plot to assassinate former President Bush in 1993 in Kuwait."
According to the report, the most active terrorist group on Baghdad's payroll is Mujahedin-e Khalq, an organisation devoted to overthrowing the government of Iran - Iraq's supposed partner in the "axis of evil." Splitting hairs? These are dangerous states and their threat must surely be met? Except that in his State of the Union address, when he conjured up his "axis of evil" for the first time, Mr Bush presumed quite a lot of his allies and their loyalty to a "war on terrorsim" whose scope was suddenly expanded dramatically.
In the words of a New Republic columnist, "Bush wasn't really proposing an extension of the war on terrorism at all; he was proposing a new war altogether." A war which even the conservative National Review warned is against a broad category of what the President refered in his speech to "states like these". "Don't fret, Syria and Somalia: The club is still open for members," the Review notes.
If such an expansion of war aims and enemies demands moral or practical support, columnist John O'Sullivan wrote in the same magazine, allies "have a positive duty to ask such questions as: 'What exactly do you intend to do? How much support can you count on from neighbouring powers for military action? What defence or counter-attack is the axis capable of mounting'?" And they did.
Most tellingly, the European Commissioner for External Relations, Mr Chris Patten, a long-time favourite of Washington's for his role in Hong Kong, who warned of the Bush "absolutist" approach to the world. The Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, shot back that his old friend deeply misunderstood and said: "I shall have a word with him, as they say in Britain."
Before he had a chance, Mr Patten published a rebuke of the aministration in the Financial Times arguing that American success in Afghanistan had "reinforced some dangerous instincts", including the belief that "the projection of military power is the only basis of true security", that "the US can rely only on itself", and that allies were "an optional extra".
Then there was the French Foreign Minister, Mr Hubert Vedrine, with comments on the strategy as "simplistic", the German Foreign Minister, Mr Joschke Fischer, contending the administration was treating coalition partners like "satellites", and Russia's President Putin observing that the members of the anti-terror coalition signed up to battle the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and "Iraq is not on this list". The sudden deluge of unusually outspoken criticism is directly linked to a broad underlying message and methodology summed up in the phrase "axis of evil".
In part, it is a fear that the US will launch an attack on Iraq, in part that it is willing to go it alone. "Some governments," Mr Bush said in the State of the Union, "will be timid in the face of terror . . . If they do not act, America will".
Mr Bush's aides describe their boss as a man who emerged from the first phase of the war more convinced than ever that the US alone has the power to complete its task, with the coalition if possible - and without them if necessary.
And yet his trip to Asia has shown up the contradictions in the rhetoric.
Much of his time in Korea has been spent precisely denying the similarity between members of the "axis" - the US has "no intention of attacking North Korea". And it is willing to talk to Pyonyang at any time, without preconditins.
Mr Kim Dae Jung's "sunshine policy" is praised, though Mr Bush can't resist using the word "evil" about the North, slipped in against diplomatic advice in a conversation with journalists.
The Washington Post yesterday cautioned editorially, however, that Europeans should not be too hasty to see the "axis of evil" as a reversion to unilateralist type. Rather it should be seen as the beginning of a campaign to persuade allies "that the status quo policies for containing Iraq, Iran and North Korea are no longer acceptable". The alternative is still not clear, the paper says, noting Mr Bush's oft-repeated insistence that "all options are on the table" and that there are no plans for immediate action.
The argument with allies will be "worth it" if its succeeds in producing a more solid alliance an a real strategy for dealing with theses dangerous states. For that to happen, the paper argues, Europeans must drop their "pointless rhetoric" and make their own proposals. And Mr Bush "must be prepared to fulfil his promise to listen as well as lead". Allies may take some convincing.