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American Impotence Destabilizes Its Allies
By Richard Werly
Le Temps
Thursday 03 April 2008
It was almost painful to watch George Bush Wednesday morning in Bucharest.
Facing a floor of experts, diplomats and Romanian officials before the opening
of the NATO summit yesterday evening, the American president seemed to be even
shorter on arguments than usual.
In what very much looks like his "Atlanticist testament," the White
House resident nonetheless pronounced some truths. It is difficult, for example,
not to acknowledge that NATO, an alliance conceived to defend European democracies
and geographically present all the way to Turkey, has a mission to respond to
Ukraine and Georgia's solicitations. For these countries so familiar with the
Russian embrace, the allies' granting "a plan with adhesion in view"
at Bucharest would have undeniably rhymed with freedom. George Bush, appreciated
in Eastern Europe for his determination to counter Moscow's diktats, is in harmony
with a good part of the region on that score.
NATO is still primarily a military alliance, in the heart of which each country's
general staff has been taking into account the heavy bill American military
adventurism since 2001 has left behind. And then, Washington's refusal to correct
its course from Baghdad to Kabul.
The quagmire of reconstruction in Afghanistan, where Islamist extremists stand
up to the most important coalition ever deployed is, in fact, impossible to
analyze without bearing in mind the Iraqi debacle. By embarking NATO on a war
against terror too complicated to be won by airstrikes and special forces, the
Bush administration launched a virtually insurmountable challenge to the formidable
allied military machine. For other fault lines have opened: from Iran's nuclear
gesticulations to Russia's appetite for power....
The result in Bucharest is a great strategic maelstrom. Convinced of NATO's
importance, wanting even, like France, to reoccupy a more significant position
there, the United States' allies differ over their priorities and the way to
tackle the terrorist threat and energy security. Obviously, the United States
remains the alliance's central axis. Without it, NATO can do nothing. But George
Bush's imperial America also bequeaths its impotence. This type of legacy is
a heavy handicap for the future.
Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.
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