Bush 'could inflame anti-US feelings' | SCMP

US President George W. Bush has redefined America's foreign policy in an idealistic but potentially counterproductive attempt to stamp out terrorism, analysts said yesterday.

They questioned whether the approach would work given that Mr Bush's remarks could inflame already burgeoning anti-American sentiment in countries he had specifically mentioned: China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran among them.

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Causing a rift in Europe between the long-standing democracies of France and Germany and the newly democratic countries of eastern Europe, over support for the war in Iraq, demonstrated a "quite remarkable hatred and contempt for democracy". Turkey had similarly been condemned by Mr Bush and his senior officials for refusing to allow use of its territory to help the war effort - even though 90 per cent of its people opposed the conflict, Dr Chomsky said.

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Relations with long-time strategic partners Saudi Arabia and Egypt may be affected, while the delicate balance with China was also now in doubt.

Mr Bush had bought into the belief that the root cause of terrorism was the political culture of the Arab world.

"He has embraced the theory that has been outlined by me and others that the key would be to try to change the way of doing political business in the Middle East to make it more modern and democratic," Dr Muravchik said.

Mr Bush was reiterating in stronger language a policy spelled out in the National Security Strategy last year. This had been largely ignored by the media, though, as the same paper contained the controversial doctrine of pre-emptive war.