Spoiling for a fight in Chile

The talk of the closing stages of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Chile was the incident involving U.S. President George W. Bush and Chilean security officers over a U.S. Secret Service agent. This is hardly the kind of diplomatic behavior one expects of world statesmen.

Nevertheless, it would have done world peace no harm if Bush had been content with getting embroiled in such altercations. Unfortunately, invigorated no doubt by his victory in the U.S. presidential elections, he seemed to have gone to Santiago to pick a fresh fight with two states which he said in 2002 formed part of the "axis of evil", along with Iraq. He took a confrontational line with Iran and North Korea, demanding that they disarm.

With the U.S. invasion of Iraq embedded on the world's memory, it would be hard to view such a belligerent stance without serious misgivings, especially since it seems to be calculated to dismiss the encouraging developments in the diplomatic track initiated by UK, France and Germany to get Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities and get on the negotiating table.

While Bush seemed intent on using the APEC summit as a platform to put pressure on Iran and North Korea rather than pursue peace in the Middle East, it was encouraging to hear New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark telling APEC business leaders that it was vital to identify and address the root causes of terrorism and to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

However, unless the U.S. is prepared to turn the heat on Israel, Palestinian statehood will remain an elusive dream and terrorism will continue to be a global nightmare. -- New Straits Times, Kuala Lumpur