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October 18, 2003
Safire on UN Victory By Tom Smith Last night on the Lehrer News Hour, William Safire of the New York Times finally provided some insight on the sources of Bush's recent victory at the UN. According to Safire, Bush and Putin made a deal at their recent meeting at Camp David. At the time, the New York Times played it as yet another defeat for Bush, where the Russians refused to stop helping Iran with their nuclear program. Here's part of what Safire said: Something happened and what happened was the Russians. And where did the Russians suddenly become our supporters? Go back two weeks to Camp David, and that meeting between Bush and Putin and what came out of that meeting was a terrible statement by Bush saying that freedom and democracy and the rule of law was the vision of Putin. I said -- Putin, you know, the KGB cadre running that place is running down human rights and all. Well, evidently, a deal was struck that I'll put a good face on our relationship, but we expect real help in the U.N. And, sure enough when push came to shove, the Russians went to the French and Germans and said we'll broker the deal. When you look at the deal, you see what the French wanted. The French wanted a provisional government taking power . . . away from the Americans, and the Americans said no. So what was worked out was some nice language saying that the sovereignty will be embodied in this governing council -- I noticed that an 'and' was changed to an 'or' -- which lawyers think is very important -- but what happened was unanimity on the Security Council. When the Russians turned, the Chinese turned and the French and Germans realized we can't be out here by ourselves and that left Syria, which didn't want to vote for that but they just had a black eye and they didn't want to be all alone in the U.N., the Security Council, and so they went. And so what we got: a fifteen to nothing vote for continued American political control in Iraq I still wonder what all Bush offered Putin to get him to support us in the UN. Simply a statement putting a happy face on Putin's regime in Russia does not seem like enough to secure Putin's support. |