In assessing President Bush's disastrous policies in Iraq, we tend to focus on the damage done there but to forget the costs of what is being neglected elsewhere. In foreign policy, however, sins of omission can be as perilous as those of commission, and are likely to compound America's overall losses. I recently visited with frustrated government officials and policy makers in three countries where America's distractions in Iraq have led it to neglect important interests. In China, were I spent a week before Christmas, I was given the impression that the government was prepared to enter into extended discussions about trade, human rights and the North Korean nuclear program, but that despite the visit by Secretary Paulson and his trade delegation, real traction could not be gained because the Oval Office was not deeply engaged. Despite that, China's intentions became evident in the resolution of the Korean nuclear standoff last week. China seems prepared to enter a deeper partnership with the U.S., but the U.S. is too mired in its Iraq troubles to explore the possibility.
In Libya, where I have spent considerable time recently, Mumaar Qadhaffi yielded his nuclear program materiel back in 2003 and since then, with the help of his son Saif al Islam, has begun to look at proposals for economic modernization and for democratization. Yet there has been little follow up from the Bush administration, and highly placed Libyans said to me they felt rebuffed in their efforts at improved ties. I have been told by American officials close to the Bush administration that this is benign neglect rather than willed negligence -- which, however, makes it worse rather than better in the sense that the U.S. is aggravating Libya unintentionally simply because it is not paying attention. This negligence may even be contributing to Libyan intransigence on the Bulgarian nurse case (five nurses and a Palestinian doctor have been condemned to death by a Libyan court for putatively "causing" AIDS in Libyan children in a Benghzai hospital -- though Saif al Islam has said they will not be executed).
In Mexico, from which I have just returned, there is continuing disappointment among highly placed officials in the governing PAN Party that the once close relationship between Presidents Fox and Bush was squandered by the American preoccupation with Iraq, and that today the erosion of Bush's reputation has weakened his ability to make good on his fair-minded proposals for labor immigration between Mexico and the United States. The new successor government in Mexico under President Calderon feels closer to the U.S. than to Chavez's Venezuela, but there is little indication that the Administration is paying much attention. Instead, it continues to offer provocations that allow Chavez to grandstand throughout the Americas and make Mexico's relatively friendly relationship with the U.S. seem awkward and pointless.
In all three cases, then, potential American partners (and perhaps even friends) are being kept at arm's length by a U.S. government obsessed with a losing campaign in Iraq. When the final balance sheet is produced, it will be clear that in failing to win his foolish war against global terrorism in a country where there were no global terrorists until we got there and drew them into the battle, Bush may have also lost several winnable campaigns for friends and allies elsewhere around the globe.
In a world where the friends of America are ever fewer, November 2008 can't come too soon.
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