Superpower worries world

In many nations, leaders have constituencies that oppose U.S. action against Saddam.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
WASHINGTON -- Picture the Lilliputians pulling ropes, tying knots, doing their best to restrain the giant Gulliver. As a historic vote on Iraq nears at the United Nations, some observers describe what is happening as a similarly Swiftian scene.
The world, more concerned about the unbridled use of American power than it is about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, is as intent on limiting the giant's power as it is in taking away the despot's weapons.
The global interest in restraining American power is one factor explaining why so many countries are balking at U.S. pressure to support its resolution in the United Nations Security Council. It also explains why so many are supporting France and its alternative approach to dealing with Baghdad.
France's proposal
The French proposal, not yet submitted, would require the United States to return to the U.N. to seek permission to go to war, should a new weapons-inspection regime fail to disarm Iraq. How the United States responds to this attempt to hobble its power may set the tone for global relations for years to come.
Analysts note that the United States under President Bush has had some notable successes at playing the geopolitical game -- drawing Russia into the Western fold and mending relations with China, for example. But some wonder if the United States could squander those gains by single-mindedly pursuing Saddam, a gambit that many countries perceive as unilateral action.
"There are risks for the United States ... especially in respect to some of the gains it has made in the geopolitical sphere," said Thomas Henriksen, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, Calif.
Many heads of state are dealing with domestic constituencies that oppose cooperation with the United States on Iraq, prompting some leaders to temper their support for America. Russian President Vladimir Putin "was already seen as a little too pro-American when it came to the U.S. going to war in Afghanistan," Henriksen said. Any Russian still longing for the glory days of the Soviet Union "feels strongly that Putin has to stiffen his response to the U.S."
A Security Council vote that had looked imminent may now be pushed back until just after the U.S. midterm elections next week. That would give the Bush administration time to continue negotiating for as much international support as possible for a tough inspections resolution. It's a stance that the U.S. electorate wants from the White House, according to opinion polls.
Win-win situation
The White House is portraying the situation as a win-win for the United States. On the one hand, it could result in the U.S.-authored resolution with "triggers" for U.S. military action in the event Saddam fails, as expected, to comply with the stiff requirements. Such a resolution would include reference to "consequences" if Saddam fails to meet all demands, and to the Iraqi leader's being in "material breach" of U.N. resolutions -- phrasing taken in international diplomacy to authorize war.
The United States was "heartened," one official close to negotiations said, by chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix's support Monday for just such a tough resolution.
On the other hand,the council could deliver a weak resolution. That would open the door for the United States to declare it did everything it could to work with the world body, but the U.N. failed the backbone test. Consequently, the United States is creating its own coalition.
Still, some countries believe the United States is going to do what it wants anyway. That's one reason they are focusing as much on how to deal with American power as on how to defang Saddam.
"This debate that's been going on in the U.N. for six weeks now is an extraordinary indicator of the degree to which America's power makes other countries uncomfortable," said Stephen Walt, a foreign-policy expert at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.
Difficult position
The mixed diplomatic imperatives are putting the United States in a difficult negotiating position, he said. The U.S. attempt to pressure the U.N. to take action, applied in tandem with veiled threats to use power alone, makes reaching the goal of international unity against Iraq only more problematic. "The more willing and even eager we appear to use that power, the more uncomfortable others are likely to be," Walt added.
The U.S. case is also complicated by the Bush administration's new National Security Strategy, laying out the right to take preventive military action against suspected threats. The so-called Bush doctrine, which goes beyond the U.N.-sanctioned right to act in self-defense against a threat, crowded the Iraq debate with new concerns about the United States' intentions.
Administration officials are mostly leaving to like-minded pundits the job of casting doubt over the motives of countries -- chiefly France and Russia -- that are so far standing in the way of a resolution that includes authorization of American use of force.
France is motivated by its lucrative oil and other contracts with Iraq, those observers say. Russia, for its part, is mostly interested in collecting $8 billion in debt from Iraq -- and pursuing other business interests.
But the case of Mexico, one of 10 rotating members of the Security Council, which so far has sided with France on curtailing any war "triggers" in the resolution, illustrates the nonpecuniary motivations.
Political motive
"Public opinion in Mexico is not favorable to a war with Iraq, and it would be very costly politically for President [Vicente] Fox to support the U.S. at this point," said Jorge Chabat, a noted Mexican specialist in international relations in Mexico City.
"It is not a case of being pro-French or even anti-American," Chabat said. "But Mexicans have had their own experience with American power," he added, noting Mexico's historic loss of half its territory to the United States in the 19th century. "Mexican people, more even than other people in the world, are not anxious to support the U.S. in its use of power."