Bush agenda: The message will be no different from Bush I.

GREG SHERIDAN
The Australian
Agenda driven by leading hawks
March 24, 2005

THE pattern of senior appointments in Washington offers a fascinating insight into where the second Bush administration is heading. If you're a Bush critic, the good news is that George W. Bush is going to take the multilateral system and international issues hugely seriously. The bad news is just the same.

Bush is going to engage all the issues his critics claim he neglected in his first term - Third World development, the image of the US throughout the world, reform and reinvigoration of the UN. But he will do so in a way that is consistent with his political values.

Three appointments make this clear - Paul Wolfowitz to move from Deputy Secretary of Defence to president of the World Bank, John Bolton to move from under-secretary of state to US ambassador to the UN, and Karen Hughes, the President's former communications director, to become under-secretary of state for public diplomacy.

This is clearly earnest intent. They are all Bush insiders and genuine heavy hitters. Each will be criticised but each offers Bush the chance to make a real difference.

Wolfowitz was the intellectual behind the invasion of Iraq and must shoulder some blame for the many foul-ups. But he is much more than that. In the 1980s he was a popular and effective ambassador to Indonesia and a champion of serious US dialogue with the Muslim world.

The most interesting aspect of Wolfowitz's background, in terms of the World Bank appointment, is that he is a true neo-conservative. Neo-con is such a misused term, especially in Australia, as to have become almost meaningless. But it originally referred to Democrats, liberal on domestic issues and liberal internationalists, who were also anti-communist but became sickened by the anti-Americanism of the Left and thus defected to the Right, becoming Republicans.

Wolfowitz, who served in the Carter administration, fits this description perfectly. He believes in democracy and development. James Wolfensohn was a mixed grill as World Bank president. His message became woolly and confused by the NGO rhetoric he picked up in his attempts to make the World Bank more palatable to its critics. Wolfowitz will be more intellectually robust. He has a chance to move development issues, including aid, to the centre of US concerns.

Bolton is a bold appointment as UN ambassador. He is regarded as the hardest of hardliners and has made many speeches critical of the UN. But the UN desperately needs reform and appointing Bolton shows that Bush is taking the UNseriously.

Moreover, Bolton has already done the UN the greatest good turn of anyone in its history. In 1975 the UN General Assembly passed a foul and disgraceful resolution equating Zionism with racism. The magnificent Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat, then the US ambassador to the UN, famously pronounced: "The US rises to declare before the General Assembly of the UN, and before the world, that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act."

Enter Bolton. In 1991, in the administration of George H.W. Bush, Bolton was the critical actor in getting the resolution overturned. This was a prerequisite in rehabilitating the UN in US opinion. It was a classic example of tough love. Bolton is being compared to Moynihan and another US ambassador to the UN, Jeanne Kirkpatrick. But Bolton, though more conservative than either of those two, has a much more substantial record for getting things done.

In the first term of this presidency, for example, Bolton alone constructed the Proliferation Security Initiative, designed to prevent North Korea proliferating weapons technology as well as illegal drugs and other contraband. It was the most effective act of counter-proliferation in many a long year. It was also effective multilateralism, it just didn't involve the UN.

And finally there is Hughes. No adviser, not even Karl Rove on the domestic

side at the White House, or Condoleezza Rice when she was national security adviser, was closer to Bush personally than Hughes.

Although Hughes has no background in the Arab or Muslim worlds, where much of the work is to be done, she is enormously smart, is used to succeeding and has the full confidence of the President. Her appointment shows that Bush takes seriously the need to get America's message out and into play.

The war on terror is in many ways similar to the Cold War, but the US has not put in place anything like the vast information effort it ran in the Cold War. This is in part because the State Department, which would run such an effort, is seen by many in the Bush team as institutionally hostile to core elements of the Bush policy. No one has been keen to dole out money to State, much less for something mushy like public diplomacy.

But this State Department, under Rice, is going to be central to the second Bush administration. Bob Zoellick, the former US trade representative and now Rice's deputy, is an unusually senior person for the No.2 slot at State. It is almost unheard of to go down from being a cabinet member to being a sub-cabinet officer. But with Rice, Zoellick and Hughes at State and Bolton as UN ambassador, the State Department is now set up to be the key institution for Bush mark II.

None of this guarantees success for Bush's foreign policy, but it does indicate that he knows what his priorities are and has deployed his best people to address them. It does suggest that although BushII may speak to the world in a more gentle way, the message will be no different from Bush I.

Bush saw the way presidential power ebbed from his father in his last days in office. He is determined to use his time in office. He has tackled such big issues, he will be seen as either a very good or a very bad president, depending on how they work out. He is a profoundly interesting and complex politician. His mark on history, these appointments suggest, will be substantial.