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US: 'Expect more of the same'
04/11/2004 15:38 - (SA)
Pretoria - United States president George W Bush would regard his re-election as a mandate for "more of the same" on foreign policy, an American political analyst said on Thursday.
This would lead the American government to shrug off the disapproval of the rest of the world in taking certain decisions, Indiana University's Prof Michael Wolf said in Pretoria.
"They will view this (the re-election) as saying: 'We can disagree with our allies and the rest of the world with no problem'," he told a seminar hosted by the Africa Institute of South Africa.
A core group of Bush voters and supporters drew parallels between the US's recent handling of terrorism and the Reagan administration's approach to communism in the 1980s, Wolf said.
Reagan helped end communism
They credit Reagan with bringing about an end to communism and the fall of the Soviet Union despite discomfort in some quarters of the world with his methods.
"The lesson they (Republican voters) took from that was this: 'We were right in the face of the rest of the world telling us we were wrong'," Wolf explained.
Similarly, this core group believed the US was correct in its response to domestic security fears - including its invasion of Iraq despite world opposition to perceived American unilateralism.
"These people are now saying: 'They told us Iraq is wrong - we know we are right. They told us we were wrong before'."
Wolf did not expect US military action against countries like North Korea and Iran, citing the current budget deficit and manpower constraints posed by American troops being stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"We have no excess troops to do anything else," he said. "Don't plan for an invasion in the near future - I cannot see that in the works."
The deficit might also influence relations with Africa, where the US has invested in anti-Aids programmes and military intervention in conflict zones. Even if the US wanted to remain engaged on issues like Aids and the conflict in the Sudan, budget constraints could make this hard to do, Wolf said.
On Aids specifically, Bush was likely to wish to continue American support to Africa - partly as this was a topic close to the heart of the Republican leader of the Senate, Bill Frist.
Want to help Africa
Wolf said the political will existed to pursue US peacekeeping involvement on the African continent. This was spurred partly by what he terms the "hangover" of Rwanda - where hundreds of thousands of minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in a 100-day genocide without world intervention in 1994. Wolf said African oil would be a major driving force in foreign policy.
"That is not to say that the US just wants to drill for oil everywhere - but it would be driven by this issue to ensure that relations continue.
"It is not the only reason, but it certainly is a big one."
- SAPA
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