Barely a year ago, in the wake of the Cold War and the Persian Gulf war, George Bush bestrode the world, the president of the only surviving superpower, admired abroad and seemingly invincible at home.
But that was last year. As Bush has become vulnerable domestically, so has his reputation and image declined overseas, among old friends and recent foes. If he plans to make his foreign policy a weapon in his re-election campaign, as his aides said last week, that weapon is looking flimsier by the day.
”You know he looked like a giant during the gulf war,” a Russian expert on U.S. affairs said in Moscow. ”But, poof, he shrunk, and now we are wondering why this happened and who is going to lead his self-proclaimed `new world order.` ”
Reports from Tribune correspondents around the world showed that this view of Bush varies from country to country.
The Chinese and Eastern Europeans admire him as much as ever. The Russians have their doubts, the Japanese fret over his weakness, the Europeans find him congenial but strangely indecisive, and the Arabs chafe under the continuing American-led embargoes of Libya and Iraq.
Only the Israelis openly long for Bush`s defeat in November. Much of the rest of the world, like many Americans, are disillusioned with Bush but prefer him, as a known quantity, to the still mysterious Bill Clinton or Ross Perot. But foreigners traditionally root for incumbents in American elections, if only because they don`t have to spend the next year or two getting to know a new president and his aides.
Part of this decline in Bush`s stature is due to the growing realization abroad that the U.S. is wrestling with a seriously weakened economy, proving that a strong economy at home is the best base for a strong policy overseas.
”Bush`s main problem basically has been the American economy,” a government official in Panama said. ”To me this diminishes his stature as a president who can get things done.”
Another part of the problem is the inevitable letdown from the gulf war, when the world was given firm U.S. leadership and was promised a ”new world order.”
”People can`t comprehend the paralysis in American political life,”
said Yukio Okamoto, a Japanese political consultant with close ties to the government. ”They hear a lot about the new world order, but they see no substance. They don`t know where America wants to lead.”
More trouble comes from images of a beleaguered, even ailing, president flashed around the world-vomiting into the lap of the Japanese prime minister, fleeing tear gas in Panama, criticized by allies in Rio de Janeiro.
In the wake of the Earth Summit in Rio, the French newspaper Le Monde complained that ”once we reproached (the U.S.) for too much interventionism. The Cold War barely over, we reproach it now for its indifference.”
Many of the new doubts about Bush are rooted, as usual, in the domestic affairs and preoccupations of the other countries themselves. China feels well treated by Bush, Israel feels ill used, Russia wants more attention from him and the Arabs want less.
”Bush is a great president,” a senior Chinese official gushed at a government banquet recently.
But, ”the intimacy, the trust and the mutual need that existed in the past have disappeared,” Hebrew University political scientist Gabby Sheffer said in Israel, which considers Bush downright hostile.
Britain still basks in close ties between Bush and Prime Minister John Major. When Major visited Bush at Camp David after his upset victory in the recent British general election, the president started the conversation by asking Major, ”How did you do it?” According to a British diplomat, the two men then ignored world problems and spent the day talking politics.
But a London-based think tank, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, issued a blistering indictment of Bush last month. It called him
”timid” and ”slow-footed” abroad, condemned his Russian policy as
”tight-fisted” and his Japan trip as ”nothing short of a humiliation,”
and said ”the idea that the American military might function as a `globo-cop` was simply laughable.”
The foreign view of Bush is a picture seen through a prism that glitters or blurs depending on where the viewer stands:
– In Europe, governments see Bush weakened by domestic political challenges. But many European leaders-in Germany, France and Italy, in particular-have their own problems with recessions and unrest and can sympathize. This, plus a traditional European reluctance to criticize an ally publicly, has muted their criticisms. Virtually every European government is rooting-privately, of course-for a Bush victory in November.
Bush is still admired in Europe for his handling of the gulf war and the end of the Cold War. Trade disputes and the Earth Summit put him at odds with his European allies. But the Europeans` own failure to deal effectively with the Yugoslav crisis has reinforced the growing feeling that even a stronger and more united Europe needs a continued American presence.
The government of French President Francois Mitterrand is an exception. Mitterrand sniped at Bush during the Los Angeles riots, and the French resent U.S. opposition to increased European defense unity and pressure on trade.
But even Mitterrand, who personally likes Bush, is trying to mend fences. And West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl is known to hope that the Munich summit of industrial nations next month will help both him and Bush overcome their domestic political problems.
– Russia is so obsessed with its own agony that it can spare little thought for American politics.
Recent TV coverage of Bush has stressed his problems, such as the Los Angeles riots, and the independent newspaper Izvestia reported from America that ”the popularity of George Bush has reached an all-time low.”
But Russian views of Bush tend to be formed by the nation`s need for U.S. help in rebuilding its economy and political system. Bush is seen as reacting to Russian requests, not leading the West`s response. Officials admit that Russians do not understand America`s own economic problems or the domestic constraints on Bush`s ability to aid Russia.
”Bush seems to be a bit lost at the moment, without an eye for the future,” a Moscow city official said. ”He could build a world coalition to defeat Saddam Hussein, but he can`t get the world together to help Russia, despite the huge stakes.”
– China has built a $15 billion trade surplus with the U.S. and seen U.S.-Chinese relations survive the Tiananmen Square massacre. For this, Bush gets the credit.
The Chinese believe that only a man who has lived in China can understand the country, and Bush, who spent a year in Beijing as U.S. ambassador, is considered the best guarantee that the good relations will continue. (Skeptics refer instead to ”the Chinese virus,” a disease caught by foreigners who live in Beijing briefly and believe for the rest of their lives that they can handle the Chinese.)
Effigies of Bush are regularly burned at rallies in the Philippines and South Korea, but the rest of Asia seems content with another Bush term in office. For most Asian nations, the U.S. is the best market for their exports, and they fear a more protectionist Democratic administration.
”Bush is a man with a vision and knowledge abroad,” said one Chinese scholar. ”What do the other candidates know about the world outside America?”
– The support of Japan`s leaders for Bush goes beyond the normal backing of foreign leaders for incumbents and reflects their fear of Perot and Clinton. Perot especially upset the Japanese by selecting Pat Choate, an outspoken critic of Japanese lobbying in America, as a top advisor.
”Japan simply cannot understand why Mr. Bush is suffering in popularity,” said political consultant Okamoto. ”It`s the vagaries of U.S. sentiment that worries Japanese leaders.”
As Okomoto said, Japan still sees America as ”the only superpower.” It is a perception, rooted in the old Cold War relationship, that suits Japanese who want to stress security issues, not the growing economic problems.
In economics, the U.S. is seen as a nation in decline. This perception rubs off on Bush. The president was criticized for not coming to Japan last November. Then he was doubly criticized for his visit in Japan, when he behaved like a salesman for American cars.
”It was a sign of tremendous weakness in the American economy,” said Shunji Taoka, a conservative columnist for Aera magazine. ”It was a scream for help, a sign the U.S. economy was in serious trouble.”
To make matters worse, Bush`s collapse at the state banquet was broadcast over and over by Japanese TV and became a metaphor for a relationship in trouble, with Japan propping up a faltering America.
– In the Middle East, the scene of Bush`s biggest foreign policy triumph, a lot has changed since the gulf war. Bush`s inability to solve the region`s problems and the growing perception of American high-handedness and arrogance have cost Bush the respect of Arabs and Israelis alike.
The mood in Israel is anybody but Bush. The president and Secretary of State James A. Baker III are seen as the architects of a swing away from Israel.
Bush`s complaints about the Israeli lobby in Washington and his open disputes with Yitzak Shamir`s government over loan guarantees, arms sales and Palestine have led Yitzhak Rabin, the Labor candidate for prime minister, to speak of a relationship ”in crisis.”
Arabs, who admire strong leaders, cannot fathom the news that Bush is scrambling for his political life against the likes of Perot. Compounding the problem is the fact that Hussein is still in power in Iraq, the embargo is hurting innocent Iraqis and the sanctions against Libya look like an anti-Arab vendetta.
”Why do you want to humiliate an Arab country?” asked Walid Kazziha, a political scientist at the American University in Cairo. ”Why must you continue to punish (Iraq`s) people? Every Arab is thinking this.”
The new world order ”today is being used to justify the imposition of sanctions against Libya,” wrote Egyptian commentator Mohamed Sid-Ahmed.
”There are fears that tomorrow it will be used to vindicate punitive measures against Syria, Sudan, Algeria, etc. This has led to a growing feeling among Arabs that the new world order is aimed against them.”
”Whose world,” asked Al-Ahram, Cairo`s leading daily, ”and whose order?”
– Latin Americans, more than any other people, both admire and resent the U.S. ”Yanqui go home” is daubed on a wall in Buenos Aires; it is followed by ”And take us with you.” Bush benefits and suffers from this split opinion.
Latin American leaders, fearful of angering the U.S., hesitate to criticize Bush publicly. Colombia and Peru, for instance, oppose his anti-narcotics strategy and are skeptical of his proposed continentwide free-trade zone.
Bush`s performance at the Earth Summit was seen almost as a personal insult by many South Americans. Last week`s U.S. Supreme Court ruling, upholding the legality of American kidnappings of anyone wanted for crimes in the U.S., reminded many of American neo-colonial arrogance.
Would Clinton or Perot enjoy a better image? Probably not. Every recent American president has been measured against the shining image of John F. Kennedy and has been found wanting.
– After 40 years of Soviet rule, most East Europeans have an almost idealistic and naive view of American virtues. Bush and his vice president, Dan Quayle, have visited every major East European nation except Romania, to huge acclaim. East Europeans line up daily outside U.S. embassies to get visas. New McDonald`s outlets set local records for popularity.
Years of Communist anti-American propaganda have left the East Europeans disinclined to believe anything bad about America now. Bush himself is seen as the winner of the Cold War, almost a savior.
But there are signs this blind admiration is fading. Poles and other East Europeans think American aid has been slow and relatively skimpy. As reforms bring unemployment and high prices, there is growing pessimism about the new capitalism and its benefits.
A possible shift in attitudes may have come earlier this month when a small group of Poles, dressed in Ku Klux Klan costumes and business suits, demonstrated in front of the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw. The group shouted, ”We are all Los Angeles blacks, living in poverty among luxurious hotels.”
