Few spheres where US can act alone - Haass

WORLD VIEW: Realistristically, there are few international spheres in which the US has the capacity to go it alone, despite all its power and strength, according to Mr Richard Haass, Director of Policy Planning in the State Department and President Bush's chief adviser on Northern Ireland.

He believes this is all the more the case after the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11th last and the war in Afghanistan that followed. He is the US co-ordinator for policy regarding the future of Afghanistan.

In an interview this week in Dublin, Mr Haass emphasised that there are "multiple forms of multilateralism". He has been a considerable theorist of the subject in his academic writing, before returning to government last year with Mr Bush (having served his father in 1989-1993).

"Some of the basic foreign policy choices are not between mutilateralism and unilateralism, but between various forms of multilateralism," he said.

He is close to Mr Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, and together they have sought to build and maintain the international coalition in support of the war, stressing the need for genuine consultation with allies and partners against those in the US government who would prefer more unilateral methods.

Mr Haass says it is hard to generalise about US foreign policy; the precise mix depends on specific circumstances. But in an era of globalisation and transnational institutions in almost every case the US needs partners, whether this concerns the use of military force, trade negotiations, sharing intelligence, co-operating on law enforcement or dealing with disease.

He is well aware of the criticisms from Europe that Mr Bush was much more inclined to a unilateral approach in his first nine months in office, during which the administration backed away from a whole series of international treaties, alliances and negotiations. He says the multilateral/unilateral divide is somewhat overdrawn.

He went on to insist that the US "has got to be somewhat à la carte even at the risk of inconsistency, simple because we have a set of obligations and responsibilities that make it qualitatively different. We provide a good deal of the underpinning of international order. It sometimes means we have to be somewhat more independent to fulfil that responsibility".

In a speech in Washington last November on multilateralism Mr Haass said a basic enduring question for US foreign policy since the 18th century is how it should "work with others to foster a world conducive to our interests and values". He said the Bush administration is "forging a hard-headed multilateralism suited to the demands of a global era, one that will promote our values and interests now and help structure an international environment to sustain them well into the future". He defined soft-headed multilateralsim as "going along to get along".

He insisted that multilateral action on Afghanistan "does not constrain us" but can be a "true force multiplier, enabling us to leverage our assets in combination with others". He went on to identify "basic principles to guide our approach to multilateralism in the coming years". First and foremost, he said "American leadership is fundamental. Without it, multilateral initiatives can go astray - or worse". Yet leadership demands "a sense of humility" and requires "genuine consultation" with friends and partners whose support will be needed in years to come.

In the light of such principles it was not surprising that Mr Haass cannot agree to the kind of multilateralism "that would give every country an equal voice regardless of their orientations and contributions" - as in the UN General Assembly "which hardly has a stellar reputation".

Such an apolitical multilateralism "does not make sense in a world where major powers don't agree on the principal issues and so many countries are not prepared to contribute meaningfully".

A recurrent theme of Mr Haass's academic writing has been a comparison between the US world role now and that of Britain in the 19th century. In an article in Foreign Affairs (September/October 1999), he said "American foreign policy must project an imperial dimension", although not in the sense of territorial control or commercial exploitation, but in organising the world "along certain principles affecting both relations between states and conditions within them . . . US influence would reflect the appeal of American culture, the strength of the American economy, and the attractiveness of the norms being promoted. Coercion and the use of force would normally be a secondary option".

Mr Haass said these basic points stand although they do not reflect official policy. So much of multilateralism was defined by the Cold War that it makes sense to reinvigorate alliances and evolve relations after it. "They simply can't coast when geopolitics change". He gives improved US relations with Russia and India as prime examples of this process, as well as the response of NATO and Asian allies to the Afghan crisis.

The US should not be shackled by the memories of past animosities - in the 1999 article he said Lord Palmerston's dictum about British foreign policy "applies in spades" in the post-Cold War world: "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow".

Mr Haass regards relations with Europe as critical for US foreign policy. Despite tension last year before September 11th, they are still the US's principal partners in the world.

Whether collectively or with individual countries such as France, Germany and Britain this has been crucial in recent months, including with the Irish Government, "which has been extremely supportive".

Despite "tactical tension" on some issues such as the Middle East or Iraq and on social issues the fundamental relations between Europe and the US are "still fundamentally strong".

NATO and EU enlargement will not challenge that, but should be seen as a recognition that the domestic evolution of the candidate states makes them more ready to be brought "into the fold".

Questions of efficiency arise with larger organisations but are soluble. A stronger EU can be a more effective partner for the US, which welcomes the greater cohesion and capacity involved. Relations are much more cooperative than competitive and there will be scope for ad hoc coalitions of the most able and willing to deal with specific global crises; but it will be important that an economically and militarily stronger EU does "not get in the way of NATO functions or become an obstacle to transatlantic co-operation".

Mr Haass says any US foreign undertaking must expect to be criticised. But he finds it "hard to give much weight to it" given that the Irish Government "has been so fundamentally supportive of the US position and the international coalition in the war ag ainst terrorism. The cause is so manifestly just that criticism about means is a second order matter". He believes criticisms that the US response was disproportionate are unfounded - "I defy anyone to produce another example in history where so much wa s done militarily at the same time as to avoid damage to innocent life. The lengths to which those directing the war have gone to avoid so-called collateral damage are quite extraordinary".

It was necessary to take some precautions with the al-Qaeda prisoners being held in Cuba "but their basic rights will be protected". The critics, he thinks do not have much of a case and will not carry the day.