Times Online - Bush Sr warning over unilateral action


Bush Sr. isn't pulling a Carter is he? At a talk he gave recently at Tufts University, he apparently had some slightly critical things to say about the path we're on.

THE first President Bush has told his son that hopes of peace in the Middle East would be ruined if a war with Iraq were not backed by international unity.

Drawing on his own experiences before and after the 1991 Gulf War, Mr Bush Sr said that the brief flowering of hope for Arab-Israeli relations a decade ago would never have happened if America had ignored the will of the United Nations.


He also urged the President to resist his tendency to bear grudges, advising his son to bridge the rift between the United States, France and Germany.


“You’ve got to reach out to the other person. You’ve got to convince them that long-term friendship should trump short-term adversity,” he said.


The former President’s comments reflect unease among the Bush family and its entourage at the way that George W. Bush is ignoring international opinion and overriding the institutions that his father sought to uphold. Mr Bush Sr is a former US Ambassador to the UN and comes from a family steeped in multi-lateralist traditions


Although not addressed to his son in person, the message, in a speech at Tufts University in Massachusetts, was unmistakeable. Mr Bush Sr even came close to conceding that opponents of his son’s case against President Saddam Hussein, who he himself is on record as loathing, have legitimate cause for concern.[...]

Would it be out of line to point out that it is perhaps because of Sr's desire to cooperate internationally a little too much that we're in this jam right now?