Bush and Kerry: Are they that different? By Janadas Devan UNITED States Senator John Kerry, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, called the Bush administration last week a 'crooked', 'lying' lot. President George W. Bush, for his part, has accused Mr Kerry of not sufficiently 'defending America'. Voters faced 'a choice between an America that leads the world with strength and confidence, or an America that is uncertain in the face of danger', he said. Mr Bush 'has run the most arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy in the modern history' of the US, Mr Kerry countered. World leaders, he claimed, have told him they can't wait for Mr Bush to be turfed out. Which world leader, asked a Bush spokesman - North Korea's President Kim Jong Il? And so it goes, a presidential race that has become very nasty very early in the election cycle, a reflection of how tight the contest is likely to be. But are the combatants as divided on foreign policy as they claim to be? Is America's safety really at stake in this election, as Mr Bush claims? Would the US settle on a risky unilateralist course if Mr Bush is re-elected, as Mr Kerry claims? Let's go back 12 years, to 1992. At this time that year, candidate Bill Clinton was accusing then president George H.W. Bush of 'mollycoddling' China. Once in office, president Clinton called US-China relations a 'strategic partnership', and extended preferred nation trading status to the country. Now go back four years, to 2000. At this time that year, candidate George W. Bush was attacking Mr Clinton on China, arguing that the US and China were 'strategic competitors', not 'strategic partners'. Once in office, President Bush, after some wobbling, hewed to his predecessor's policies; and after Sept 11, moved expeditiously to mend ties with Beijing. Europeans look back nostalgically now on Mr Clinton's presidency, but they sang quite a different tune while he was still in office. The term 'hyperpower', for example, was coined by the French to describe the US during Mr Clinton's watch. The Secretary of State who said (arrogantly? recklessly?) the US was the world's 'indispensable power', was Mr Clinton's Mrs Madeleine Albright, not Mr Bush's Mr Colin Powell. In the 2000 campaign, when Mr Bush called for a 'humble' foreign policy, it sounded credible precisely because many people did think Mr Clinton wasn't humble. It was he who initiated 'regime change' as the aim of US policy in Iraq. It was he who first proposed that the Anti- Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty be amended to allow the US to deploy a missile defence system. And though he supported the Kyoto Treaty on global warming, he made no attempt to submit it for ratification. It can be argued that on all these issues, Mr Bush did no more than carry through - albeit, more aggressively and without apology - lines his predecessor had already established. Where Mr Clinton temporised on Kyoto, Mr Bush just said no. Where Mr Clinton tried to eviscerate the ABM treaty through negotiations, Mr Bush just scrapped it. And where Mr Clinton talked of 'regime change' in Iraq, Mr Bush changed it. As for multilateralism, Mr Clinton, it should be noted, never sought the United Nations' approval before invading Kosovo. Some things simply don't change, no matter who is president. And they won't, no matter who wins in November, because the basic facts won't change. As Singapore Foreign Minister S. Jayakumar told Parliament last week, the 'key geopolitical fact of the post-Cold War is the pre-eminence of the US'. That 'does not mean (it) will always get its way', but it does mean 'no major international issue can be resolved without (its) cooperation', and no combination of powers 'can challenge (its) pre-eminence'. In other words, a superpower is a superpower is a superpower - and will act like one, to maintain its pre-eminence. If that needs any clarification, consider this statement: 'Allies give us more hands in the struggle (against terrorism), but no president would ever let them tie our hands and prevent us from doing what must be done... I will not wait for a green light from abroad when our safety is at stake.' Who said that? President Bush? No. It was none other than Senator Kerry, just two weeks ago. Does that mean it doesn't matter who wins in November? Not at all. It does matter - at the margin; and the margin does matter. A Kerry win would probably have at least the following consequences: Use of force: Mr Kerry is not a pacifist - he has killed people in war - but his record, from his days as an anti-Vietnam War activist to his uncomfortable vote last year to authorise the US invasion of Iraq, does suggest a reluctance to use force. But that doesn't mean he won't, any more than Mr Clinton's reluctance prevented him from an orgy of 'humanitarian' interventions. Multilateralism: Former US Ambassador to the UN, and now Kerry adviser, Mr Richard Holbrook, put it thus: 'The Bush administration has been unilateral when it can, multilateral when it must. Kerry's would return to the tradition that prevailed from Roosevelt to Clinton, including Reagan: multilateral when it can, unilateral only if it must.' Again that doesn't mean a President Kerry will never be unilateral, anymore than Mr Clinton wasn't. Trade: Mr Kerry has voted for every free-trade agreement in the last decade, including the US- Singapore FTA. But Democratic primary politics forced him to camouflage his free-trade beliefs with 'fair trade' (aka protectionist) rhetoric. Mr Bush has hardly been spotless on trade himself, but he would have more room to manoeuvre. A President Kerry will probably go slow in furthering Mr Clinton's globalising agenda - unless, of course, he is blessed with a booming economy. Might all these differences at the margin please Mr Kim? Probably not. But they probably will Messrs Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder, Vladimir Putin (and perhaps even Messrs Tony Blair/Gordon Brown).