Canwest News Service
By Sheldon Alberts

‘Overzealous Christians’ dominate U.S. administration, ex-Liberal MP charges’

OTTAWA – Former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy has written a book that portrays U.S. President George W. Bush as an “extreme” and “radical” leader whose approach to world affairs is based on “military dominance and naked self-interest.”

In a 430-page tome to be release this fall, Axworthy says the Bush administration is dominated by overzealous Christians, blasts U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci for “hectoring” Canadians over the Iraq war and accuses the Chretien government of capitulating to the Americans by entering negotiations on ballistic missile defense.

The former Winnipeg MP, who retired from politics in 2000 after serving four years as foreign minister, rejects critics who have labeled him anti-American. He warns, though, against pursuing closer ties with the U.S. and complains that Ottawa is being pressured by corporate interests and a right-wing media into succumbing to American security and military demands.

“Anyone who thinks that proximity [to the U.S.] brings favours or privilege is living in a dream world,” Axworthy writes in the book.

The book - titles Navigating a New World: Canada’s Global Future – condemns Bush’s “radical doctrine of pre-emptive intervention” in other nation while promoting the merits of Axworthy’s own foreign policy philosophy of soft power and human security.

“The instinct of the Bush administration to dismiss treaties, disdain common efforts to cope with global issues and argue for full-spectrum dominance and preemptive unilateral action needs a constructive response.”

Axworthy, who now runs the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia, says Canadians should be wary of the Bush administration rather then fret over whether the president mentions Canada in a speech or visits Mexico City instead of Ottawa.

He warns the shift in political demographics in America – which is bringing more power to southern and western politicians – is making the U.S. government more conservative and disdainful of Canada’s more liberal domestic and international affairs agenda.

“The Reagan presidency, the Gingrich New Revolution and the present Bush administration have strong roots in evangelical religious organizations, which pursue their political goals with all the zeal expressed in the old hymn Onward Christian Soldiers,” Axworthy writes. “The result is an extreme right-wing agenda centered on anti-abortion policies; resistance to anything that smacks of family planning; law and order; corporate tax cuts; and gargantuan military spending.”

Axworthy says his own political dealings with Bush, while he was governor of Texas, gave him a “foretaste” of the president’s disdain for the international community.

Axworthy intervened with Bush in 1999 on behalf of Canadian Stanley Faulder, a convicted murderer on death row in Texas. Canada argued that Faulder’s international treaty rights had been violated. Bush’s response “was that he didn’t really care if he broke an international covenant…the Texas court had spoken. Faulder was duly executed.”

Axworthy is openly disdainful of U.S. complaints this spring about Canada’s decision to stay out of the war in Iraq, and says he believes the fear of reprisal from the White House led Prime Minister Jean Chretien to drop his opposition to Bush’s $8-billion missile defense plan.

He also says Cellucci crossed the line when he expressed public dissatisfaction with Canada’s war stand.

The “undiplomatic intervention” and “hectoring” by Cellucci was the primary reason Canada relented on calls to open talks on missile defense, Axworthy writes.

“What began as an honest difference of policy with our neighbour over the use of armed intervention has turned into an act of capitulation on the altar of preserving good continental relations,” Axworthy writes. “Jean Chretien came into office vowing to keep a respectful distance. He is leaving office feeling compelled to seek a peace offering to the Bush administration on missile defense.”

He also says the U.S. has shown “wanton disregard” for Canadian interests on U.S. domestic issues with potentially huge impacts on Canada.

Axworthy blames a right-wing media – he specifically cites “the CanWest publication empire” – and powerful corporate elite for demonizing “liberal-minded” Canadian nationalists who are resistant to U.S. influence.

In order to counter the power of the U.S., Axworthy says Canada should pursue closer ties with Mexico. He says that approach would “afford both of us greater leverage” in dealings with America.

Axworthy’s book will be published in October by Alfred A. Knopf.