Thoughts from London

America Bush-whacked by fear and faith
What a journey it has been. Here is a man whose very occupation of the White House has been fiercely contested in the United States and the world outside.

Only a few months ago Mike Moore's film Farenheit 9/11 that thrashed the Bush administration and its war on terror had won the prestigious Palm D'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Earlier the same Mike Moore had written "Stupid White Men", a ferocious and funny expose of George W. Bush's controversial presidential election in 2004, which was only settled by a wafer-thin majority of the Supreme Court.

But it was more than about how George Bush stole the presidential election with the help of his brother. It was also about the rich in America and how they continue to get richer with the political help of Bush and his cronies.

This is what one would call the Bush factor. Yet, despite Iraq and the horror stories about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the scandals about American big business connected with Bush cronies and even the worsening US economy, Bush romps home to an election victory that not only earns him 51% of the popular vote, but Republican control of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Very soon he will have the opportunity of nominating like-minded judges to the Supreme Court. Thus George W. Bush would not only have the executive and legislature under his wing, if not his thumb but also the judiciary. That, by any standards would be a dangerous situation in a democratic country. It is doubly troubling when the country happens to be the world's most powerful state.

Such concern by people as opposed to their governments, round the world as recent polls showed, is multiplied when the leader of that country is George W. Bush.

What worries people even in countries that have proved reliable allies such as Britain, is not that he has split America right down the middle or that he has moved the centre of gravity of American politics further to the right. If half the American population is happy with the conservative values that Bush has preached from his political pulpits and wish to shed what some might call neo-liberal ethics and still others political correctness, that is an issue for the American people to sort out.

What is worrying people round the world is whether George Bush, emboldened by his unexpectedly decisive victory and now in control of the legislature too, will pursue an even more aggressive foreign policy.

Conventional wisdom has it that presidents in their second term tend to be more chastened in their dealings with the rest of the world. A more recent illustration, it is claimed, is Ronald Reagan who began by confronting the "evil empire", the then Soviet Union, with hostile rhetoric and a massive arms build up that would have left Moscow economically enfeebled had the Soviets tried to match it.

But in his second term Reagan followed a course of détente and disarmament that, with the help of Mikhail Gorbachev, eventually led to the dismantling of the Soviet Union and set the stage for an end to the Cold War.

Could the world expect a relatively subdued George Bush to follow a path of reconciliation in the next four-year term? If the legacy that the second Bush wants to bequeath to America is that he fought and won the war on terror, then he has to continue to wage war abroad even more resolutely. Whether he could actually defeat terrorism is another question.

What he wants to show the American people to whom he made a solemn promise that they would be safe only under his leadership, is to carry the war abroad even more vigorously.

Even if the people round the world, especially Islamic people, abhor such search and destroy operations that have resulted in thousands of innocents being killed or incarcerated in inhuman conditions, there are surely governments in Asia and elsewhere that would, secretly at least, welcome another Bush presidency.

In the post 9/11 world President Bush has tried to build new bilateral relationships and erect new defences against international terrorism. This is particularly so of South and Southeast Asia, which one military expert called the "demographic centre of Islam", where the Bush administration has pursued a policy of forging tangible relations with several countries in the region.

Two administrations that would surely welcome another Bush presidency are Afghanistan and Pakistan, both key allies in the war on terror. Even the new Indian government would wish to continue the relationship with Washington, particularly since Bush had accorded high priority to New Delhi in his foreign policy.

It is not simply the strategic importance of India in counter-balancing China who Washington obviously has to consider as the only credible future challenger to US supremacy.

What will pre-occupy the Bush administration in the next couple of years is strengthening military relations and counter-terrorism capabilities with countries in the region as a key factor in its war on terror.

Already there has been military cooperation with India. A key ally in this regard would be Indonesia that has hitherto been reluctant to take such cooperation too far because of its domestic constituency. Moreover the US Congress has halted military-to-military contacts over atrocities committed by Indonesia soldiers.

But now Bush has control of Congress and the soldier who led the fight against terrorism after the Bali bombing last year, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is now president of Indonesia and is already considering tough anti-terrorism laws..

The Sri Lanka government too should be happy, at least in private, that American diplomatic pressure and proposed military cooperation, would act as a bulwark against the increasingly abrasive attitude of the LTTE which, from the US perspective has made the error of challenging the international donor community and has made a belated attempt to deny any understanding called the Oslo Declaration.

An important development in the future is likely to be a Regional Maritime Security Initiative (RMSI) as proposed by US Admiral Thomas Fargo earlier this year that would enable countries especially in Southeast Asia to coordinate effective action against illicit maritime activities by pirates and terrorist organisations such as the LTTE which smuggle arms through the Malacca Straits or from areas around it to Sri Lanka.

If that initiative is formalised the US is likely to deploy special forces in the Malacca Straits. The Bush administration is acutely aware of the transnational character of modern terrorism and its interdependence. So any effective war on terror must necessarily deal with all organisations that use terror as a political weapon.

In its first term the Bush administration concentrated on Islamist organisations. It is expected to enlarge the scope of its war now that Bush has received a huge mandate from a people fearful of their security and terrorism outside their own borders.

The LTTE and its affiliated organisations such as the World Tamil Movement and the World Tamil Association are unlikely to escape close scrutiny and possible action.

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