By Lee Cullum, KERA 90.1 Commentator
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-496440.mp3
Dallas, TX –
The president was annoyed when he called a meeting of the former secretaries of state and defense at the White House, and Madeleine Albright, who ran the State Department under Bill Clinton, asked him whether the war in Iraq was undermining his capacity to deal with other areas of the world such as China, Latin America, Iran or North Korea, whether the Iraqi action was "taking up all the energy" of his foreign policy team while problems grew unboundedly, "fertilized," as John F. Kennedy once said, "by our neglect."
"I can't let this comment stand," Bush shot back, according to one press report. The administration can "do more than one thing at a time."
The president was equally irritated after Katrina, when he finally visited the Gulf Coast, and reporters asked him if the tight focus on Iraq had blinded the administration to other potential troubles. Again, he retorted, "We can do more than one thing at a time."
But can they? Latin America is sliding ever more precipitously into an anti-U.S., populist position. There's no reason to be disturbed by the election of Michelle Bachelet as president of Chili. She's a Socialist, but with no apparent hostility to Washington. Her party has been more like the German Social Democrats than Marxists.
But Evo Morales, the new leader of Bolivia, is a real cause for concern. A champion of coca farmers and an enemy of energy companies, he and his ally, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, threaten the region with many losses-loss of the gains of the 1990s, loss of economic vitality aside from oil in Venezuela, and, for the United States, loss of a congenial neighborhood. That could be accentuated if leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is elected president of Mexico this summer. And what has been the response of Washington to these developments? After ill-starred support of a failed coup against Chavez almost four years ago, very little. "It's not that they are not taking Latin America seriously," said one long-time observer, "it's that they're not doing serious things."
In Beijing, leaders were ecstatic at one point because they believed that Bush was so distracted by the war in Iraq that he didn't have time to hound China about human rights, trade and the environment. What they feared, of course, was that when the Iraqi threat abated, the China issue would move back to the fore. That is exactly what has happened, even though Iraq is still a big worry in Washington. Handling Congressional opposition to China is taking some doing in the administration. Secretaries John Snow at Treasury and Donald Rumsfeld at Defense turn on to the issue from time to time. However, more sustained attention may be needed.
Then we have North Korea, where talks, long ignored in Washington prior to last September, are stymied for now and perhaps for quite a while, and Iran, which may be our most dangerous foreign policy problem. John McCain is right: military action cannot be ruled out if Tehran persists in its nuclear program. France, Germany and Britain cannot be left out on a diplomatic limb, either. Nor can the eye of the White House, even for a moment, leave the ball. If the administration can do more than one thing at a time, Iran is the place to prove it.
Lee Cullum is a contributor to the Dallas Morning News and to KERA.
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