The US cannot afford to play ostrich

The US cannot afford to play ostrich

President elect George W. Bush is strongly promoting bipartisanship in American foreign policy, at least in his recent public comments. He has said: ``We must conduct foreign policy in the spirit of national unity and bipartisanship.''...

Colin Powell, a secretary of state-designate, has spoken of working with Congress ``in a bipartisan fashion, so that we can arrive at consensus and that the world can see us united behind our foreign policy.''

This is welcome news. During the election campaign Mr Bush sounded ambivalent at times about US international engagement, particularly on the use of American troops abroad.

The campaign is now over, and the close results, both in the presidential race and in the congressional contests, show that the American public is evenly split along party lines. But that same public is not split on the issue of US engagement abroad. Poll after poll consistently shows that Americans are not isolationist but broadly internationalist. They recognise that America is ultimately strengthened by international engagement, not weakened.

This is also true, despite the conventional wisdom, on Capitol Hill. Elected representatives are not homebound and uninterested in the world, a recent survey of members of Congress revealed. The majority of national politicians know, like their constituents, that America cannot and should not fence itself off from the rest of the globe.

Therefore, now is the time for a concerted effort by the next president and the new Congress to find common ground on international and multilateral engagement.

Mr Bush will find 2001 a busy year on the international front. April brings a major conference on the Americas, in Quebec. A Group of Eight economic summit follows in Genoa in the summer, and an Asian economic summit in Shanghai in November.

When Mr Bush takes office he will face a continuing Israeli-Palestinian crisis and a debate at the United Nations over continuing sanctions against Iraq. Taiwan will soon make its annual request for new US armaments, which will be bitterly opposed by Beijing. Mr Bush must decide how to handle engagement with North Korea and what approaches to take on the continuing tensions between nuclear armed India and Pakistan.

As ever, US leadership is key to revolving these issue. The Bush administration can lead without overcommitting the United States militarily or economically. Without US leadership, many conflicts will fester and worsen.

Last year the Overseas Development Council brought together senior advisers to Mr Bush and Al Gore. What emerged from those meetings of campaign aides and experts in foreign affairs was a consensus on multilateral engagement. The phrase ``we cannot go it alone'' was a refrain on both sides, which firmly agreed that national interests would be safeguarded only if America developed a broad range of engagements with the rest of the world.

The traditional foreign policy agenda of arms control, peacekeeping and international trade is far broader today. The American people believe in doing their fair share in fighting genocide and terrorism, in tackling global crime, stopping the spread of infectious diseases to Americans' own shores, aiding refugees, responding to the effects of climate change and avoiding the fallout from destabilising poverty in other nations.

Excerpted from an edit page article by Princeton N. Lyman and Michael H.C. McDowell, `International Herald Tribune', January 10