Foreign Policy's 'Pivotal Moment'
From Chechnya to China, U.S. Sees Relations in a New Light

By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 27, 2001; Page A01

The Bush administration called on separatist rebels in Chechnya yesterday to cut their ties to "international terrorist groups" that have provided weapons for their fight for independence and urged the rebels to accept peace talks with the Kremlin.

The administration's statements -- aligning the United States with Russia's frequent attempts to blame the insurgency on Islamic extremists from abroad -- marked a major change in U.S. tone, which for years has sharply criticized Russia's human rights record in the breakaway southern republic. It comes on the heels of Moscow's offer to let the United States use Russian bases and airspace in a war on terrorism.

"To the extent that there are terrorists in Chechnya, Arab terrorists associated with the al Qaeda organization, I believe they ought to be brought to justice," President Bush said. "We do believe there's some al Qaeda folks in Chechnya."

Asked about a 72-hour ultimatum that Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the Chechen rebels Monday to begin negotiations, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said "we welcome the steps by the Russians to engage the Chechen leadership." Fleischer denied there was any link between the American support and Russia's backing of the U.S. anti-terrorism effort.

The shift on Chechnya is just one of many foreign policy reverberations being felt from the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. Almost every aspect of U.S. foreign policy is being seen in a new light, according to Bush administration officials and policy experts, as the administration courts friends and seeks to defuse conflicts so it does not have to fight on too many military and diplomatic fronts at once.

On Tuesday, for example, the White House canceled Bush's long-planned visits to Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing, limiting his trip next month to the meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Forum in Shanghai.

On other fronts, the administration has embraced multilateralism and made United Nations funding a priority after months of pursuing a largely go-it-alone foreign policy. It is intensifying pressure on Israel and the Palestinians to reach a cease-fire and given old foes such as Syria and Iran new chances for earning U.S. gratitude.

In a reversal, Pakistan is being courted more ardently than India. China -- until recently described by Bush as a "strategic competitor" -- is being asked to share intelligence information against a common foe.

Further changes could be coming. Potential conflicts over issues such as NATO expansion, pulling troops out of the Balkans, or withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty might be postponed and handled with greater sensitivities to potential allies in the war on terrorism, foreign policy experts said. And human rights issues among America's new allies are likely to be handled with greater delicacy, if they are mentioned at all.

Uzbekistan is one example. In early September, the State Department was compiling its annual report on religious freedom and trying to decide whether to name Uzbekistan as a "country of concern" because of the jailing of thousands of Muslims.

Now, the administration is embracing Uzbekistan's government. Air Force planes are planning to make a temporary home there for possible military strikes into neighboring Afghanistan, which has been harboring accused terrorist Osama bin Laden. An Uzbek Islamic group was one of just two groups Bush mentioned specifically as terrorist threats in his speech to Congress last week. The religious freedom report has yet to be completed.

The shift is also affecting countries where U.S. aid and trade are the most pressing foreign policy issues. Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill's one-time reluctance to bail out financially ailing Turkeywill disappear as the administration bolsters that predominantly Muslim nation, a senior administration official said. The free-trade bill for Jordan that had been languishing in the Senate passed this week. Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Jeff Bader, stranded in Geneva after the Sept. 11 attacks, completed talks on China's admission to the World Trade Organization.

"We are at a pivotal moment," said James Lindsay, a foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution. "Clearly, this is the closest we have come to a moment that could define American foreign policy since the end of World War II." While it might be premature to talk about a long-term recasting of U.S. foreign policy, Lindsay said the emergence of terrorism as a top priority means other priorities will slip.

"The things that were at the top of our list we're no longer paying much attention to," said Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to Bush's father and now an independent business consultant.

One big question mark is missile defense, which until this month's attacks was the centerpiece of the administration's military policy. It could get a boost from supporters who believe any sort of attack is conceivable, experts said. Or it could become a lower priority compared to defense against lower-technology methods of terrorism and the need for partners in the war against terrorism.

A desire to avoid confrontation with Russia could slow the expansion of NATO, which will weigh the candidacies of Baltic nations next year. Moscow has opposed expanding the alliance into the Baltics. The administration might also put aside talk of withdrawing from the 1972 ABM Treaty this fall, as some administration members had wanted to do to clear the path for tests of new missile defense systems, according to foreign policy experts.

A senior State Department official denied that things will drop off the Bush foreign policy agenda. "The United States of America is capable of doing a number of things simultaneously," he said. "We're capable of running an entire foreign policy."

But others aren't so sure. Criticism of Russia's war in Chechnya could remain muted, though Bush did say yesterday, "I would hope that the Russian president, while dealing with the al Qaeda organization, also respects minority rights within his country."

Some policy experts and human rights advocates say they fear that in the name of fighting terrorism, the United States might overlook other human rights issues, such as the coup that brought Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to power or Iran's alleged complicity in the bombing of a U.S. Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996 and other terrorist attacks.

"I hope we don't make the mistake of abandoning our principles to protect ourselves," said Richard Perle, a Pentagon official in the Reagan administration. "It never works over the long term. We're far better off sticking to what we believe."

Others say that sticking to American values is especially important in a war Bush has described as one of good vs. evil.

"The United States will condone actions committed in the name of anti-terrorism that it would have condemned just two weeks ago," said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director of Human Rights Watch and a former Clinton administration official. "Uzbekistan is a country that has utterly failed to distinguish between violent groups and nonviolent Muslims. And that's a distinction that the United States is going to have to show that it can make."

The Sept. 11 attacks also raise the stakes for the United States in the Middle East. To build a coalition that would include Arab and Muslim countries for its anti-terrorism campaign, U.S. officials say they need to defuse criticism that the United States is too closely allied with Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians.

Before the attacks, administration officials stressed that the two sides -- and not the United States -- would have to take the initiative in resuming security cooperation and restarting peace talks. Over the past two weeks, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has stepped up his personal efforts in frequent telephone calls to arrange a meeting between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres that could promote new security measures. Powell held two telephone conversations each with Arafat and Peres in the hours before the long-awaited meeting was announced Tuesday. The meeting was held yesterday at the airport in Gaza.

"We are coming to an era where conflicts will not be acceptable any more because they are directly affecting U.S. interests," said one Arab diplomat. "U.S. tolerance for any conflict will be affected. Therefore I think there will be an international move, not just against terrorism, but against chronic conflicts that threaten the world community."

U.S. policy toward China could also shift. Bush administration complaints about China's military buildup could yield to talk of trade and cooperation on terrorism, policy experts said. Counterterrorism experts from the two countries met Tuesday in Washington.

The sliver of land linking Afghanistan to China could be an important strategic tool in U.S. efforts to nab bin Laden and punish his Taliban sponsors. The United States and China used that corridor in the early 1980s to send weapons to Afghan rebels then fighting the Soviet Union. More recently China has feared the flow of weapons and fighters back into its largely Muslim Xinjiang region, a stronghold of separatism by ethnic Uighurs.

"We don't have to give up on human rights, but we don't have to stick a finger in their eye every time you turn around," Scowcroft said.

Staff writer Alan Sipress contributed to this report.