By Nigel Thorpe
Chief of the English Copy Desk
Beneath the gray skies of a wet and windy January day, a misty-eyed George Walker Bush, the 54-year-old former Texas governor, took the oath of office that had been administered 12 years earlier to his father, former president George Bush, who looked on proudly. This is only the second time in the America's history that a son of a president has been sworn into office.
Weaving a political tapestry with mainly domestic threads such as education reform, tax cuts, Medicare, and the need to build up the country’s military capacity which had featured so prominently in this election campaign, his 14-minute inaugural address confirmed the Bush administration’s intention to concentrate more on national, rather than international matters.
"The enemies of liberty and our country should make no mistake: America remains engaged in the world, by history and by choice, shaping a balance of power that favors freedom," Bush said in the only section of the speech that dealt directly with foreign policy.
The need for unity was another of speech’s national motifs - "I'm here to tell the country that things will get done, that we're going to rise above expectations, that both Republicans and Democrats will come together to do what's right for America."
As noted by CNN's Senior Political Correspondent, Candy Crowley, the old and new president that stood together on the same rain-swept platform in front of the Capitol could hardly be more unlike in both their character and politics. Political analysts see Clinton as a “hands-on”, charismatic politician with a deep interest and long experience of international affairs. In contrast, the apparently more aloof Bush is said to favor delegating authority particularly in the field of foreign affairs and is likely to rely heavily on ‘seasoned political veterans’. Clinton is also seen to be more pro-Israeli while Bush, with his oil background and his father’s involvement with both the Madrid Peace Accord, and the Desert Storm operation, is seen to be more pro-Arab.
In an interview with CNN’s senior correspondent Christiane Amanpour, Major Garrett, the CNN’s correspondent to the White House correspondent commented that World leaders, certainly US allies, are concerned that George W. Bush has not yet shown much personal interest in foreign affairs.
US allies, he said, are also concerned about the few international policies he says he wants to pursue. For instance, in Europe, the idea of building a national missile defense worries some of the European allies, as well as Russia and China. There is a general fear he will isolate the United States from the international community. Garratt commented that ”there was a fear that George W. Bush and the Republican administration would become more isolationist than the Clinton administration. Most experts, however, don't believe that the US will become isolationist. What they do think, though, is that a Bush administration will be much more cautious than the previous Clinton administration in using American military power, or even American diplomatic efforts overseas, because they have a much narrower definition of strict US national security interests.”
“Inauguration wishes are one thing, the practicalities of presidential duties are another,” commented one of the demonstrators who sounded a discordant note on the fringes of the inaugural procession. Major Garrat in his CNN interview echoed these sentiments when he said that “a thorough reading of presidential history reveals that challenges …are almost never sought by a president. Rather, they come at the president. A former Texas president, Lyndon Johnson, once said that encountering the difficulties of the presidency sometimes felt like standing in the middle of a Texas prairie in a driving thunderstorm with no place to hide. “
As much as Bush would wish it during the early days of his presidency when one of his top priorities is to heal the sore national wounds inflicted by the controversal presidental election that was decided in the high courts, the Middle East and the simmering Al Aqsa Intifada are driving thunderstorms that he may not be able to avoid.
The reaction in Tel Aviv to Bush’s inaugeration has been muted.
Ha'aretz diplomatic correspondent, Aluf Benn, noted that “with the inauguration of George W. Bush yesterday, a number of familiar faces are arriving in key positions in the Department of State and the Pentagon. They were in the Reagan and Bush administrations and are quite conversant with Israel and its problems.”
For once many Israelis agree with the Palestinians that Clinton was a good thing for the Jewish state, and especially for outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who is also set to depart the political scene in elections next month he is tipped to lose to right-wing opposition leader Ariel Sharon.
The Israeli daily Haaretz said Thursday that Sharon, while conceding the Palestinians' right to a state, would give them only 42 percent of the West Bank, no more than they have now. Sharon's aides are hoping that Bush, who has pledged to transfer the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, will throw Clinton plan’s in the bin.
The Palestian reaction to the new Bush era is, AFP’s Christian Chaise notes, more positive. “The Palestinians are hoping for a better deal from the Middle East peace process with new US President George W. Bush in the chair, while the Israelis are split over what he might do for them.
"We do not expect to see a magic wand," Palestinian parliament member Hanan Ashrawi told AFP. "It's not that we look at Bush as a saviour."
But Ashrawi, who described the Clinton years as an "abysmal failure" as far as the peace process was concerned, said the Palestinians were counting on Bush to make a total reassessment of the situation.
Whatever the result, both Israelis and Palestinians seem to agree that it will take time for the new Bush administration to reassess the situation.
Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam called Saturday for incoming US President George W. Bush to pursue a "neutral and balanced" approach to the peace process.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose country is among the most hardline in opposition to Israel, expressed similar sentiments on Monday.
"It is the new US administration's duty to revive the worn-out peace process and take on a new, more efficient role, in conformity with the principle of neutrality and non-alignment with Israel," Assad told a press conference.
Major Garrett in his CNN interview highlighted other “international storms” which are likely to blow Bush’s way at some point in the future. “There are,” he said, “a number of international policy and military experts who warn that the coming years may hold dangers just as frightening as those encountered during the Cold War-- dangers such as biological terrorism, chemical terrorism, or the threatened use by a rogue nation or group of individuals of a nuclear device. Any of these, or a combination of these threats, will grip whoever the president is who must encounter them.
And these are new threats, quite apart from those that this president has already identified, such as the rising military power of China, or the potential access Iran and Iraq could have to weapons of mass destruction. So these are threats that don't fit in any cold war calculus but are nevertheless very real.
In the early days of America’s history, when the Adams family became the first to boast a father and son president, inauguration speeches were of interest to a relatively small population in the fledging United States.
In the days of the Bush ‘presidential duo’, however, inaugurations are broadcast live on several cable channels around the world. There is also a great deal of interest in what a new US president has to say because the president of the US is also a world leader, and what America does affects the rest of the world.
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
