I read an interesting article in the print edition of Newsweek last night. Its premise was to explain why the world hate us, and what the current administration did to cause that. Quite an interesting read, with lots of good historical notes that prove it was the Bush administration’s diplomacy (or to be more precise, the lack thereof) that caused the impasse at the UN.

Some of more interesting historical points:

• When Clinton sent troops to Bosnia, he did so without a resolution from the UN, but he had the backing of most of Europe.
• The French and Russians have much more to lose if Iraq is invaded. Oddly, not much has been made of this by our conservative media, but both countries would lose investments if the Hussein regime were to be toppled (perhaps this is kept under the hat because the US has just as money companies with money invested there as well).

If you’ve paid attention to what just about everyone in the administration (save Powell) have said about the issue of Iraq, it is generally an “open mouth, insert foot” exercise. No one is safe from the wrath of Bush diplomacy.

The odd thing about all is that Hussein is a ruthless dictator. Iraqi exiles are rejoicing at the thought of the Baath party’s downfall. But no one cares about that. Suddenly, thanks to American neo-conservative rhetoric, Saddam is the poster-boy for the left. I saw there’s an interesting article on Salon today about how the left doesn’t seem to care about Iraq’s gross human rights violations, but I’m too lazy to sit through the ads to read the whole article….

Posted on 19 March 2003