Post by Steve Gardner on Nov 26, 2007 1:47:15 GMT
Source: International Herald Tribune
by Raymond Bonner
November 25, 2007
The defeat of Prime Minister John Howard in the Australian election Saturday deprives President George W. Bush of one of his most steadfast allies and will bring changes in Australia's foreign policy that will be felt in Washington.
During recent years, Howard was unabashedly in the U.S. corner at times when other world leaders were keeping their studied distance, and his loss is likely to be particularly acute for Bush, who puts great stock in personal relations in the conduct of foreign relations.
Howard, leader of the conservative Liberal Party, was one of the most frequent foreign visitors to Bush's White House and Texas ranch - ranking behind former Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and Jordan's King Abdullah - according to the State Department.
In his first news conference, on Sunday, the prime minister-elect, Kevin Rudd, said he had received a congratulatory call from Bush, and that he would be going to the United States early next year.
Under Rudd, the most notable foreign policy changes will be on the environment, nuclear issues and Iraq, said a veteran Australian diplomat, who did not wish to be named fearing that Rudd would not look kindly on a public servant speaking out on foreign policy.
On the environment, Rudd stated unequivocally in his victory speech Saturday evening that Australia would ratify the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. That will further isolate the United States, leaving it as the only industrial country not to have done so.
In Iraq, Rudd has said that his Labor Party would withdraw Australia's 550 combat troops. That will still leave more than 300 Australian support troops in Iraq, so the move may be seen as largely symbolic.
Howard was resolutely in Bush's camp. In the face of the largest antiwar demonstrations since Vietnam, he sent in Australian troops with the Americans - in fact, Australia's tough and highly trained special forces were secretly operating in western Iraq in advance of the U.S. invasion.
For the Bush administration, symbolism and gestures count in a war without much international support, and the biggest difference on Iraq may come over the new government's public posture. Howard could at times sound more hawkish than Bush on the need to stay the course when the war was going badly. Rudd is most unlikely to give public support, and if he does speak on the subject, he may well be critical, said the veteran diplomat.
Washington can still continue to count on critical Australian support in Afghanistan, Australian officials and neutral political analysts said. Australia has about 1,000 troops there, including special forces.
Washington will undoubtedly be watching Australia's relations with China under Rudd, who was once a diplomat in Beijing and speaks fluent Mandarin - when the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, was in Australia in September, Rudd spoke to him in Mandarin.
But with China a booming buyer of Australian resources, Australia had already been moving closer to China. Under Howard, Hu was the first nondemocratic leader to address the Australian Parliament.
A looming source of friction between the United States and Australia will be over Australia's uranium policy; Australia has some of the largest uranium deposits in the world. The Bush administration has been pushing the U.S. Congress to allow the transfer of nuclear technology and fuel to India, which was halted during the Clinton administration. Howard's government had said it would sell uranium to India.
But Labor, which was a leader in the world antinuclear movement in the 1970s, opposed the sale, and has said it will not sell uranium to any country that has not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which India has not.
Howard was often lamthingyed by his critics as being Bush's poodle. But a look at the record suggests that Australia did well out of the relationship. Tariffs were lifted on Australian steel, a free-trade agreement was signed and Australia alone enjoys visa requirements for professionals that allow about 10,500 Australians a year to enter the United States.
The Howard government also gained greater access to more defense technology and intelligence, said Michael Thawley, the Australian ambassador in Washington from late 2001 to 2005; he declined to provide any details.
When Howard began to face domestic political pressure at home over the detention of two Australian citizens, Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks, he appealed directly to Bush and to Vice President thingy Cheney, and the two were released, Hicks after a plea bargain that Australia pushed for.
Several recent polls have shown a growing antagonism in Australia toward America, with many Australians expressing a higher regard for China.
But the two men whose names are being bandied about as the most likely next ambassadors to Washington are Bob Carr, a longtime Labor politician as well as a student of U.S. presidents, and Kim Beazley, a former defense minister and U.S. Civil War buff.
Majority expected for Labor
Rudd's center-left Labor Party was expected to have a majority of perhaps 28 seats in the 150-seat lower house of Parliament, where governments are formed, when the vote count was finalized. With just under 75 percent of the votes counted Sunday night, Labor had already won an absolute majority and was leading the coalition parties by 83 seats to 58, with 7 seats undecided, Tim Johnston reported from Sydney.
"Today, Australia looked to the future. Today, the Australian people have decided that we as a nation will move forward," Rudd told a cheering crowd in his acceptance speech Saturday night.
Rudd, 50, will not formally assume the powers of prime minister until he is sworn in by the governor general later this week.
He said Sunday that he had spoken to the leaders of some of Australia's most important allies and neighbors, including the United States, Britain and Indonesia. "I emphasized to President Bush the centrality of the U.S. alliance in our approach to our future foreign policy," Rudd told journalists.
Rudd, who is 18 years younger than Howard, belongs to a different political generation - something he stressed in the campaign, which Labor framed largely as a battle between the politics of fear and the politics of hope.
"I believe the core reason we have prevailed at this election is that we outlined an agenda for the future and that agenda now becomes our agenda of work," Rudd said.
Howard's coalition stressed the Australian economy's 17 years of continuous growth and warned that a Labor victory would endanger the country's future prosperity.
But there was little distance between the two parties on economic policy. The differences largely came down to the leaders' personalities and Labor's promise to readdress broad concerns about the environment, health and education.
by Raymond Bonner
November 25, 2007
The defeat of Prime Minister John Howard in the Australian election Saturday deprives President George W. Bush of one of his most steadfast allies and will bring changes in Australia's foreign policy that will be felt in Washington.
During recent years, Howard was unabashedly in the U.S. corner at times when other world leaders were keeping their studied distance, and his loss is likely to be particularly acute for Bush, who puts great stock in personal relations in the conduct of foreign relations.
Howard, leader of the conservative Liberal Party, was one of the most frequent foreign visitors to Bush's White House and Texas ranch - ranking behind former Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and Jordan's King Abdullah - according to the State Department.
In his first news conference, on Sunday, the prime minister-elect, Kevin Rudd, said he had received a congratulatory call from Bush, and that he would be going to the United States early next year.
Under Rudd, the most notable foreign policy changes will be on the environment, nuclear issues and Iraq, said a veteran Australian diplomat, who did not wish to be named fearing that Rudd would not look kindly on a public servant speaking out on foreign policy.
On the environment, Rudd stated unequivocally in his victory speech Saturday evening that Australia would ratify the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. That will further isolate the United States, leaving it as the only industrial country not to have done so.
In Iraq, Rudd has said that his Labor Party would withdraw Australia's 550 combat troops. That will still leave more than 300 Australian support troops in Iraq, so the move may be seen as largely symbolic.
Howard was resolutely in Bush's camp. In the face of the largest antiwar demonstrations since Vietnam, he sent in Australian troops with the Americans - in fact, Australia's tough and highly trained special forces were secretly operating in western Iraq in advance of the U.S. invasion.
For the Bush administration, symbolism and gestures count in a war without much international support, and the biggest difference on Iraq may come over the new government's public posture. Howard could at times sound more hawkish than Bush on the need to stay the course when the war was going badly. Rudd is most unlikely to give public support, and if he does speak on the subject, he may well be critical, said the veteran diplomat.
Washington can still continue to count on critical Australian support in Afghanistan, Australian officials and neutral political analysts said. Australia has about 1,000 troops there, including special forces.
Washington will undoubtedly be watching Australia's relations with China under Rudd, who was once a diplomat in Beijing and speaks fluent Mandarin - when the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, was in Australia in September, Rudd spoke to him in Mandarin.
But with China a booming buyer of Australian resources, Australia had already been moving closer to China. Under Howard, Hu was the first nondemocratic leader to address the Australian Parliament.
A looming source of friction between the United States and Australia will be over Australia's uranium policy; Australia has some of the largest uranium deposits in the world. The Bush administration has been pushing the U.S. Congress to allow the transfer of nuclear technology and fuel to India, which was halted during the Clinton administration. Howard's government had said it would sell uranium to India.
But Labor, which was a leader in the world antinuclear movement in the 1970s, opposed the sale, and has said it will not sell uranium to any country that has not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which India has not.
Howard was often lamthingyed by his critics as being Bush's poodle. But a look at the record suggests that Australia did well out of the relationship. Tariffs were lifted on Australian steel, a free-trade agreement was signed and Australia alone enjoys visa requirements for professionals that allow about 10,500 Australians a year to enter the United States.
The Howard government also gained greater access to more defense technology and intelligence, said Michael Thawley, the Australian ambassador in Washington from late 2001 to 2005; he declined to provide any details.
When Howard began to face domestic political pressure at home over the detention of two Australian citizens, Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks, he appealed directly to Bush and to Vice President thingy Cheney, and the two were released, Hicks after a plea bargain that Australia pushed for.
Several recent polls have shown a growing antagonism in Australia toward America, with many Australians expressing a higher regard for China.
But the two men whose names are being bandied about as the most likely next ambassadors to Washington are Bob Carr, a longtime Labor politician as well as a student of U.S. presidents, and Kim Beazley, a former defense minister and U.S. Civil War buff.
Majority expected for Labor
Rudd's center-left Labor Party was expected to have a majority of perhaps 28 seats in the 150-seat lower house of Parliament, where governments are formed, when the vote count was finalized. With just under 75 percent of the votes counted Sunday night, Labor had already won an absolute majority and was leading the coalition parties by 83 seats to 58, with 7 seats undecided, Tim Johnston reported from Sydney.
"Today, Australia looked to the future. Today, the Australian people have decided that we as a nation will move forward," Rudd told a cheering crowd in his acceptance speech Saturday night.
Rudd, 50, will not formally assume the powers of prime minister until he is sworn in by the governor general later this week.
He said Sunday that he had spoken to the leaders of some of Australia's most important allies and neighbors, including the United States, Britain and Indonesia. "I emphasized to President Bush the centrality of the U.S. alliance in our approach to our future foreign policy," Rudd told journalists.
Rudd, who is 18 years younger than Howard, belongs to a different political generation - something he stressed in the campaign, which Labor framed largely as a battle between the politics of fear and the politics of hope.
"I believe the core reason we have prevailed at this election is that we outlined an agenda for the future and that agenda now becomes our agenda of work," Rudd said.
Howard's coalition stressed the Australian economy's 17 years of continuous growth and warned that a Labor victory would endanger the country's future prosperity.
But there was little distance between the two parties on economic policy. The differences largely came down to the leaders' personalities and Labor's promise to readdress broad concerns about the environment, health and education.
