A leading international ally of George W. Bush said yesterday the election of Democratic Senator Barack Obama as the next American president would mean a "victory for the terrorists" and leave the Middle East in chaos.
In a rare intervention by a foreign leader into U.S. domestic politics, Australian Prime Minister John Howard ridiculed a proposal by Mr. Obama to completely withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq over the next 13 months.
Mr. Howard's unexpected criticism of Mr. Obama -- an underdog candidate to win his party's presidential nomination -- stunned Democrats even as U.S. conservatives joined the attack on the Illinois senator's dovish foreign policy views.
"If I were running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March, 2008, and pray as many times as possible for a victory, not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats," Mr. Howard told an Australian broadcaster.
Given Howard’s stalwart courage in the war on terror, his faithful support of the United States in the face of constant domestic criticism, his standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Americans against most of the rest of the world and the brave sacrifice of Australia’s military, this was still an incredibly stupid thing to do.
6 comments:
This is where reasonable people must agree to disagree.
Incredibly stupid. Why? I hope your Mr. Harper steps up with a similar strong, straightforward statement supporting Howard and condemning Osama's world view as a threat to us all. I guess it would too much to hope that Mr. Blair would interrupt his legacy honing to make a similar statement.
We should be hearing soon from Bush's non/allies like Chavez, Putin, Chirac, who will chime in that they support Osama.
-- A leading international ally of George W. Bush --
As someone pointed out elsewhere, note the personalization here, that PM Howard is not labeled an American ally.
I concur with Peter. When Howard retires he can say what he likes, but while in office his job is to keep shtum about the domestic politics of allies.
I don't suppose Blair wanted Bush to win at the time, but he greeted him like a bestest buddy, and that's the way it turned out.
If the Presidencies of Obama and Howard were to overlap, Howard would have to act like they were mates.
As SH's point illustrates: Australia is an ally of America first, Howard a supporter of Bush second.
Osama isn't just a member of the loyal opposition. He's a real threat which was made all the more obvious by personalizing the relationship between our two countries as merely between two rightwing ideologues.
"American ally" here means "ally of America", as opposed to "ally of George W. Bush."
Having said that, although Howard shouldn't have said it, he is right.
Deciding an arbitrary deadline for withdrawal is really stupid.
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