Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATRE=09-24-03

TYPE=INTERVIEW

NUMBER=3-795

TITLE=APOSTOLOU-IRAQ

BYLINE=DAVID BORGIDA

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

CONTENT=

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Andrew Apostolou, Director of Research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, discusses the Bush administration's efforts to seek the United Nations support in rebuilding Iraq during the UN General Assembly meetings.

MR. BORGIDA

And now joining us, Andrew Apostolou, with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He is the author of an article called "Bush's New UN Challenge," which appeared in National Review Online and can be read this afternoon. Mr. Apostolou, thank you for being with us today.

MR. APOSTOLOU

Thank you very much.

MR. BORGIDA

Did it all come true as you thought it might? You said, for example, that a new diplomatic approach is needed by the President. Give us your sense of the speech and the aftermath.

MR. APOSTOLOU

Thank you very much.

Well, I think first of all he had a terrible challenge ahead of him. He was going into a hostile audience, let's face it. And the U.S. had really fluffed the diplomacy in the last month. There had been a degree of panic in the administration, pleading for UN help, and then turning around and saying, well, actually, we don't want your help, but also finding out that people didn't want to give help anyway. So I think he did quite well.

He went there. He made it clear that he wasn't going to be diverted from his path. But he also did hint quite heavily that this is a common endeavor, and he reached out I think in quite a good way. And he made a point of talking about Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was an excellent diplomat. I think everybody paid tribute to him, and rightly so, because I think Sergio really understood Iraq more than most diplomats.

MR. BORGIDA

Let's talk about some of the other figures - the President met with Mr. Schroeder today in New York on the sidelines of the General Assembly meeting, and there appeared to be a rapprochement there.

MR. APOSTOLOU

Yes. Well, that started I think in July, when Joschka Fischer came here and made it very clear that Germany didn't want to be too associated with the de~Villepin anti-American approach that the French are taking.

You've got to remember that the Germans are very conscious of one key fact: they got their democracy from the United States, and they always say that. This is an Atlanticist German government. It may be a slightly left of center government but it is still Atlanticist. And although they did not participate in the Iraq campaign and they are only willing to give relatively minor postwar support, they do not want a rift with the United States. They don't believe in a multi-polar world; that's very important.

MR. BORGIDA

Well, let's talk, as we move down the list here of important figures and players in this episode, the high-profile episode that it is certainly, let's talk about Mr. Chirac as well as Mr. Annan. Mr. Annan, certainly at the top of this meeting, criticized the unilateralist approach, in his words, of the Bush administration. Give us your sense of Mr. Chirac first and then Mr. Annan and what their response was like.

MR. APOSTOLOU

Well, I think Chirac is different, because he has advocated a different approach in international affairs, a so-called multi-polar approach, which both the British and the Germans within the E.U. have made it very clear they do not share. But Chirac is slightly playing the good cop approach. He's letting de Villepin play the bad cop. Chirac always makes it very clear he's a great admirer of the United States, unlike de Villepin, whose protestations of love for America are a little insincere.

But I think Chirac really does want to keep cooperation going with the U.S. on key areas. But what he's looking for is sort of ala carte diplomacy. They will help on interdiction of WMD. They'll help on intercepting the sort of smuggling of WMD. They will help with Afghanistan -- they're helping an awful lot there. But they won't help in Iraq. "That's an elephant trap and you foolish Americans have fallen into it. Thank you very much. We proved them right."

MR. BORGIDA

He's not going to get a chance to respond there.

MR. APOSTOLOU

Well, you asked about Mr. Annan. Mr.~Annan, I think he made a small mistake. He talked about preemption. Preemption is actually a right of states. You can act preemptively. I think what he meant was preventatively, and he's against preventative wars.

The problem is of course that there have only been two wars that have had UN support. That was the Katanga intervention in the 1960's and the 1991 Gulf War. So I think he was maybe pushing his luck a little bit there. But I think with Kofi Annan, he would have felt earlier this year, [given] more time and then he would have supported the war. And the mistake in my view was that the U.S. went to the UN too late and didn't leave enough time. Had they gone after the State of the Union address in January 2002, I think they would have had a lot more support.

MR. BORGIDA

Let's talk briefly about another comment in your article in which you say the United States needs to issue a clear warning to regional powers, such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, and Turkey, because, in your view, they're either actively subverting the new Iraq or passively allowing citizens to cross over the borders and do so. I don't believe he did that.

MR. APOSTOLOU

No, he didn't. I think they've done that privately, however. After the incident on July the 4th, when some Turkish special forces characters were caught in Suleymaniyeh with sniper rifles, TNT, the sort of stuff you might need for a good night out in Istanbul on a Saturday, but not what you should be with in Iraqi Kurdistan, Mr.~Cheney, the Vice President, made it very clear to the Turkish Government that any more of this misbehavior and the alliance is over.

And I think there has been some pressure on Syria with the Syrian Accountability Act, which has certainly helped.

But let's face it, if you're in these countries' position and you've been told by the ideological people here in Washington that the new Iraq is going to bury you, well, you might as well strangle it at birth, mightn't you? So, in that case, we have to be very clear what we're doing here.

Are we building a bulwark of democracy that's going to steamroll the rest of the Middle East or are we saying to them, look, leave this country alone, it's sui generis, it's a unique case, don't interfere? I think we should take the second route.

MR. BORGIDA

The views of Andrew Apostolou of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, thank you for being with us. I enjoyed your view and the commentary as well. Thanks so much for being with us.

MR. APOSTOLOU

Thank you very much. A pleasure to be with you on VOA-TV.

(End of interview.)

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