A rchive Date
[ 19-02-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/02/19/28246-ap.html
Antiwar protests complicate U.S. job of turning world opinion on Iraq
Wed, February 19, 2003
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. President George W. Bush is shrugging off global antiwar protests, saying his role as a leader is to put national security first and confront Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Yet the size of the protests, drawing millions to the streets of world capitals last weekend, complicated White House efforts to rally world support for disarming the Iraqi leader. The administration mounted a public relations campaign Tuesday in an effort to liken the protests to demonstrations against NATO's staging of missiles in Germany in the early 1980s, rather than to the massive protests against the Vietnam War three decades ago.
"I respectfully disagree" with those who doubt that Saddam is a threat to peace, Bush said. "I owe it to the American people to secure this country. I will do so."
The weekend demonstrations, the largest antiwar protests since the Vietnam era, presented an unwelcome distraction to the White House as it joined with Britain in pressing for a new Iraq war resolution before the UN Security Council. More demonstrations are scheduled for March 1 in Washington and San Francisco.
"These marches are 1983 all over again," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, referring to angry street protests against NATO's positioning of intermediate-range missiles in what was then West Germany.
In that case, the missiles helped contribute to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War and the reunification of Germany, Fleischer suggested.
"There is no question that, as a result of peace through strength, communism was defeated and the Berlin Wall came down," Fleischer said.
"The point I'm making is that mass street protests don't always lead to the results people think," the spokesman added. "Often the message of the protesters is contradicted by history."
He also noted that there was substantial antiwar sentiment in the United States in the late 1930s and early 1940s, but that President Franklin D. Roosevelt rallied the U.S. public in the Second World War "to save the world."
Historians and analysts suggested that the recent demonstrations are not really comparable to those against the Vietnam War, held as the war was going on and as thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese were losing their lives.
Such protests "are not going to have the same policy implications as Vietnam, because this war is going to be over fast even if it goes badly," said Michael O'Hanlon, an analyst with the Brookings Institution. "So you're not going to have that sense of a protracted military stalemate."
As with those missile protests in Europe, the current demonstrations are "serious but ultimately containable," O'Hanlon said. Even so, he said, the missiles-in-Germany flap "had the potential to really divide the alliance. And it took a lot of work to get beyond it."
At the very least, O'Hanlon said, the level of global opposition now to war in Iraq makes it harder for Bush to press ahead with military action anytime soon.
Demonstrators took to the streets on Saturday in London, Rome, Berlin, Madrid, Sydney and dozens of U.S. cities.
Bush talked about the protests in a question-and-answer session Tuesday with reporters after a White House swearing-in ceremony for new Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson.
"Democracy is a beautiful thing," Bush said. "I welcome people's right to say what they believe."
But he said neither the size of the protests nor the antiwar message of the demonstrators would sway him.
That would be "like deciding . . . policy based upon a focus group. The role of a leader is to decide policy based upon the security, in this case, the security of the people," the president said.
"War is my last choice. But the risk of doing nothing is even a worse option as far as I'm concerned," Bush said.
As to negative public reaction, particularly in countries that are traditional U.S. allies, Bush said, "I think anytime somebody shows courage, when it comes to peace, that the people will eventually understand that."
Polls show that Bush has persuaded a majority of Americans about the need for military action against Iraq, but most want more time for the United Nations to build a broad alliance.
 CIA Factbook]
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