Armitage Blasts Bush Administration Asia Policy

Right-winger Richard Armitage, a longtime US Asia expert, lambasted the Bush Administration for its floundering Asia policies in an interview in The Australian yesterday. Some highlights:

"It's not that we're ignoring Asia a little bit; we're ignoring it totally. We're playing foreign policy at the moment like five-year-olds play soccer, everyone is going after the ball at once rather than covering the whole field.

"Right now, we're just so preoccupied with Iraq that we're ignoring Asia totally."

Mr Armitage's withering assessment of the administration - in which he served for four years in one of its most senior positions - is a severe blow to the Bush administration on the eve of APEC. Mr Armitage, with his close friend and former boss Colin Powell, who was secretary of state when Mr Armitage was deputy, were the two chief sceptics within the Bush administration concerning the Iraq invasion.

They repeatedly warned the US President of the consequences of invading Iraq in terms of the post-invasion period and the responsibility the US would assume for the political future of Iraq.

Armitage was one of the signatories of the infamous PNAC letter to President Clinton that demanded the removal of Saddam Hussein (an interview with him just prior to the 2003 invasion).

Mr Armitage was the senior official with the greatest experience of Asia within the Bush administration and his departure has left the administration short of Asian expertise. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is a Soviet expert who has become completely embroiled in the Middle East.

Mr Armitage, in an exclusive interview with The Australian, lambasted what he described as her "disastrous decision to miss two out of three ASEAN regional forums". Dr Rice missed the ASEAN meeting in Laos in 2005 and again earlier this year in Manila. She has also declined to stay for the second day of this year's APEC leaders' summit in Sydney on Sunday, which Mr Bush is skipping. Mr Bush will be represented at Sunday's meeting by US trade representative Susan Schwab. Dr Rice will fly home with the President rather than spend the day with 20 other Asia-Pacific leaders.

.......

Mr Armitage believes the Bush administration has radically underestimated the importance of Asia. "In almost every measure - military budgets, population growths, the need for raw materials - our interests will force us back to Asia," he said.

However, he does not expect the performance of the Bush administration to lift markedly in its last 16 months in office. His assessment of the administration is scathing: "In the seventh year of an eight-year administration, you've got a lot of third and fourth teamers occupying these positions. I don't think you can expect much from this bunch."

That is the most damning assessment of the current Bush administration from any former senior official and will gravely undercut the administration's credibility in Asia.

Mr Armitage said he was "entirely disappointed but not surprised" by the administration's performance. He said it was a result in part of its overall style in foreign policy. "You reap what you sow. You can't be so dismissive of others' views without it having consequences. I believe the United States can exercise leadership while fully taking account of the views of its friends and allies."

Mr Armitage said there was a danger, but not yet a great danger, of Chinese leadership in Asia surpassing that of the US. He said he was aware of the Chinese military build-up and wanted the Chinese to exhibit more transparency in their military actions, but he did not yet think it was destabilising the region.

However, he said that China's rationale for its military build-up had changed. "At first the Chinese explained it as needed to deal with the Taiwan scenario. But they've passed that point and now they talk about the need to protect their oil sources, they won't sub-contract out protection of the high seas to the (US) Seventh Fleet."

The full extent of the Bush disaster can be seen in many different ways -- the neglect of traditional ally Taiwan, the nuclear pact with India, the failure to construct a vibrant multi-national alliance to deal with China's expansionist dreams, and the driving together of Russia and China to form a NATO of the East, the SCO, over Central Asia. Not only is the SCO forging links with other regional associations -- associations that should be integrated into security arrangements led by the US and its allies, not China -- but it has gained observer status at the UN (that's right -- associations can have observer status, but not islands of 23 million people). That will not last, since each nation has plans to evict the other from the region, but for the moment Asian policy has been one long strategic defeat for Bush as China extends and deepens its links in Asia. Future historians will shake their heads in wonder at our eight year long train wreck. Unfortunately the Bush Administration views its relationship to the outside world as an emperor sitting on its throne, rather than as a sort of senior partner in an establishment law firm, the way the US used to.

Another thing this shows is that the whithering, informed, intelligent critiques of Bush Asian policy are coming largely from the Right. The Dems, as always, seem to be totally out of touch with events out here.

Full disclosure: Armitage owns a consulting company that angles for contracts from Asian governments, including Taiwan's, and was a paid consultant for Taiwan's UN campaign in the past.

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