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recent weeks, the drumbeat of criticism of Bush administration foreign
policies has sharpened considerably. TV pundits, editorial cartoonists,
journalists, allied governments, and prominent Democrats, including
notably Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, have been denouncing
the president for acting "unilaterally." They fret that
he is putting the United States squarely at odds with the will of
the "international community." His is an "isolationist"
approach, they say, one that threatens to alienate our friends and
undermine our interests around the world.
There is no
disputing the fact that Mr. Bush has adopted policies at odds with
what passes for an international consensus on a number of topical
issues. He has, in particular:
 Rejected
as unworkable and unacceptably costly the Kyoto Protocol aimed at
reducing manmade greenhouse gas emissions that are said to contribute
to global warming.
Declared
his intention to "move beyond" the 1972 Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty with or without Russian assent in order to develop
and deploy effective missile defenses prohibited by that accord.
Refused
to pursue ratification of the Treaty of Rome which establishes an
International Criminal Court (ICC) on the grounds that such a mechanism
is likely to become politicized and may be abused to prosecute American
leaders, military personnel, and other U.S. citizens without regard
for their constitutional rights.
Opposed
efforts to impose via an international treaty controls on Americans'
right to bear arms that were deemed unconstitutional. And,
Most
recently, decided not to agree to a protocol to the Biological Weapons
Convention (BWC). After exhaustive study, the Bush administration
concluded that, while the BWC annex is intended to make that treaty
prohibiting the production, possession, and use of biological and
toxin weapons more verifiable and enforceable, it won't do either.
Yet, it would have other, real, and very undesirable costs.
What these
examples illustrate is not that President Bush is willfully and
recklessly disregarding America's responsibility to be a world leader
and exemplar to others. Rather, he is assuring that the nation retains
the military power, economic strength, institutions of free and
representative governance, and constitutional liberties that enable
this country to play such a role.
To paraphrase
Bill Clinton's mantra from the 1992 campaign, "It's U.S. sovereignty,
stupid."
The immutable
fact is that each of the agreements to which President Bush has
objected infringe unacceptably on American rights, prerogatives,
and/or responsibilities:
U.S.
accession to Kyoto would compel the federal government, American
businesses and individual citizens to make significant changes in
their day-to-day activities, changes that would impinge upon the
productivity, welfare and possibly even the security of this nation.
Mr. Bush appreciated, moreover, that these burdens would not be
equally shared by other leading developed nations (Britain and Germany
being spared significant economic dislocation thanks to their previous
closure of obsolete greenhouse gas-emitting steel plants) or by
large developing nations like China and India. Worse yet, the Kyoto
Protocol like virtually every other multilateral accord would
cede U.S. sovereignty to a supranational institution. In this case,
the "international community" would assert oversight authority
concerning American CO2 emissions and, at least indirectly, the
energy use largely responsible for producing them.
Mr.
Bush has similarly refused to allow anybody else to determine whether
and how the United States will be defended against ballistic-missile
blackmail or attack. To be sure, one of his predecessors nearly
30 years ago and under altogether different strategic circumstances
decided to give the Soviet Union a veto over American missile
defenses in the form of the ABM Treaty. Fortunately for all Americans,
this president understands that, in the wake of the demise of the
USSR and the emergence of missile threats from a number of other
quarters, it is not only imprudent to leave the Nation unprotected;
it is contrary to the federal government's sovereign responsibility
under our Constitution to provide for the "common defense."
Speaking
of the Constitution, President Bush appreciates that its protections
and rights would not be guaranteed to Americans prosecuted by the
International Criminal Court. After all, the court is to adopt,
and its activities are to be governed by, a hodgepodge of legal
codes and practices. These will not, however, include such pillars
of U.S. criminal jurisprudence as a trial by a jury of the defendant's
peers or the right to confront his or her accusers. The president
cannot in good conscience agree to surrender cardinal principles
of our Constitution to unaccountable international prosecutors,
judges, and institutions.
Foreign
governments and nongovernmental organizations have made no secret
of their desire to use the Convention on Small Arms as a means of
overriding Americans' deeply cherished, if hotly contested, right
to own and bear arms. While President Bush did go along with a new
international agreement meant to make it more difficult to engage
in illegal international trafficking in light weapons, he properly
refused to subordinate domestic ownership of such weapons to supranational
purview and dictates.
The
Biological Weapons Convention would afford foreign intelligence
services and business competitors access to many of the United States's
most sensitive proprietary processes and data in the fields of biotechnology
and genetic engineering all without contributing appreciably to
the deterrence or detection of covert and illegal BW activities.
The United
States already made this mistake once, in connection with the Chemical
Weapons Convention (CWC). Thanks to that treaty, countries like
Iran that are known to have ongoing covert chemical-weapons programs
are being given a wholly unwarranted clean bill of health. Meanwhile,
U.S. government facilities and private companies are being subjected
to disruptive, potentially damaging, and certainly costly on-site
inspections by an international inspectorate. America simply cannot
afford to extend and compound the CWC's damage to its cutting-edge
industries in the highly competitive biotech and genetic-engineering
fields.
It is regrettable
that President Bush has been put in the position where he has to
stand up again and again for American sovereignty which is now being
threatened by so many ill-advised agreements. Had his immediate
predecessor been more protective of our institutions, rights and
equities, he would have refused to allow these accords to metastasize
as they have. Interestingly, even Bill Clinton felt compelled to
act in what would now be called a "unilateral" fashion
by refusing to sign onto a fatally flawed ban on anti-personnel
landmines. He also declined to recommend to the Senate ratification
of the ICC Treaty in its present form which he described as "deeply
flawed," even though at the last moment he buckled into pressure
to sign it.
Clearly, it
would be far easier for Mr. Bush to go with the flow, earning the
kudos of the chattering classes at home and abroad by allowing agreements
reflecting the lowest common denominator of scores of nations to
become part of the growing body of supranational institutions and
legal structures. It is to the president's great credit that he
has not done so, given the high costs associated with such a course
of action.
When all is
said and done, though, not only will the United States be better
off as a nation if George W. Bush succeeds in enhancing American
sovereignty than if he embraces treaties that erode it. With its
economic and military strength and constitutional arrangements secure,
America will also be a more effective and engaged world power. That
will benefit every law-abiding member of the "international
community" far more so than they would from any number of
agreements with those who do not respect the rule of law or intend
to honor their treaty commitments pursuant to it.
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