6-09-05, 10:55am
From Morning Star Online
TONY Blair is putting a brave face on the outcome of his trip to the court of the US president, but he knows that, for all the friendly words, George W Bush has a different agenda.
The Prime Minister’s apologists argue that the political debt owed to him by Mr Bush over his unstinting support for the invasion of Iraq gives him some leverage.
This quid pro quo argument suggests that the two men’s close relationship ought to have paved the way for Mr Bush to show the same enthusiasm for Mr Blair’s proposals on aid to Africa and support for the Kyoto treaty.
How can the US president, whose coffers were filled to bulging by Big Oil, other energy companies and the “defence” sector, turn his back on their demands simply to help a visiting junior ally?
The British Prime Minister’s slavish support is appreciated by the Bush administration, but it is not crucial and it is not seen as having to be paid for. Rather, it is viewed as the president’s due.
President Bush has no deep interest in, or commitment to, Africa. He has been consistently hostile to Kyoto and to any other programme that would oblige the US to cut back on emission of global warming gases.
He is prepared to shuffle already existing “aid” budgets to Africa to allow Mr Blair to claim that there has been progress, but his priorities are elsewhere.
While Mr Blair was getting the kind comments and guard of honour treatment in Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Roger Noriega, the top State Department official for the Americas, were in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, hosting the Organisation of American States.
And their priority, as ever, was to find a way to intervene in states that are both energy-rich and out of sync with US norms of democracy.
They were pushing for passage of an amendment to the OAS charter, called Delivering the Benefits of Democracy, which included the creation of a mechanism for the “application of the Inter-American Democratic Charter in defending, protecting and promoting democracy.”
Regional governments are adept at reading between the lines and knew that “application” would be interpreted by Washington as providing for intervention.
Brazil and Chile succeeded in watering down the proposal by adding that any OAS review of a state’s democratic conduct must respect “the principle of non-intervention and the right to self-determination.”
However, Mr Noriega singled out gas-rich Bolivia as an example of where outside action could have been taken.
And Ms Rice’s statement that the US aimed to stop countries slipping into authoritarian rule was understood to be directed at oil-rich Venezuela.
Washington has its own priorities, among which reliable and cheap sources of energy are placed pretty near the top.
The Bush administration also seeks global political hegemony and military “full spectrum dominance” and it is not prepared to compromise these priorities even if this means a red face for Tony Blair.
