The US president, George Bush, yesterday took up the challenge of anti-war protesters by mounting a defence of the use of force in Iraq, saying it was necessary to prevent the United Nations suffering the same fate as the ineffectual League of Nations.
Bush, in a 40-minute speech on foreign affairs at the Banqueting House in London, said that UN resolutions were not enough and had to be backed by force.
He signalled no policy shift in his speech, though he renewed his warnings to Israel not to prejudice negotiations on the Palestinian West Bank with its ”security” wall. Instead, he devoted most of the speech to a justification of the war in Iraq.
Bush praised Tony Blair for his support since the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, comparing him to Churchill as a leader who did not waver, and the US-British relationship as ”an alliance of conviction and might”.
Speaking to an audience of mainly foreign affairs and defence specialists, who gave him a short standing ovation, Bush issued his own challenge to the protesters expected to turn out in strength today: that those on the receiving end of dictatorship had few qualms about the use of force to free them.
”And who will say that Iraq was better off when Saddam Hussein was strutting and killing, or that the world was safer when he held power? Who doubts that Afghanistan is a more just society and less dangerous without Mullah Omar playing host to terrorists from around the world? And Europe, too, is plainly better off with Milosevic answering for his crimes, instead of committing more.”
Referring directly to the protesters, he said that ”the tradition of free speech — exercised with enthusiasm — is alive and well here in London”. But he added tartly: ”They now have that right in Baghdad, as well.”
He recalled that the last US president to stay at Buckingham Palace had been Woodrow Wilson in 1918: that had been the high point of idealism. But, within a generation, the League of Nations had failed and dictators went about their business, filling the last century with violence and genocide.
”Through world war and cold war, we learned that idealism, if it is to do any good in this world, requires common purpose and national strength, moral courage and patience in difficult tasks,” he said. ”And now our generation has need of these qualities.”
Some of Bush’s more rightwing colleagues argue in favour of the minimum possible involvement with the UN, but Bush said he favoured working through the UN. ”Like 11 presidents before me, I believe in the international institutions and alliances that America helped to form and helps to lead. The US and Great Britain have laboured hard to help make the United Nations what it is supposed to be — an effective instrument of our collective security.”
He described Blair as a champion of the UN, one who understood that the organisation’s credibility ”depends on a willingness to keep its word and to act when action is required”. This was indirect criticism of those countries, such as France, who had refused to support war in Iraq until the UN weapons inspectors had been given more time.
He accused those sceptical of the need to go to war of complacency because they enjoyed the security of living in Europe. ”It’s been said that those who live near a police station find it hard to believe in the triumph of violence. In the same way, free people might be tempted to take for granted the orderly societies we have come to know.
”Because European countries now resolve differences through negotiation and consensus, there’s sometimes an assumption that the entire world functions in the same way. But let us never forget how Europe’s unity was achieved — by allied armies of liberation and Nato armies of defence.”
He insisted the US was not going to retreat from Iraq ”before a band of thugs and assassins”.
Looking beyond Iraq, he reiterated his recent call for the democratisation of Arab countries. Bush said it was condescending to say that ”Islam is somehow inconsistent with democratic culture”.
Bush repeated his plea for the Palestinians to find an alternative leader to Yasser Arafat and his inner circle, though he did not name him. And he called on Israel ”not to prejudice final negotiations with the placements of walls and fences”.
The Israeli foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, responding to Bush, said: ”We have reached a clear and unequivocal decision to build this fence, to prevent the extremists from attacking us. We are doing everything we can to put up this fence that will prevent infiltrations.” – Guardian Unlimited Â