Bush's relationship with foreign leaders has gone awry: CSM

Washington, Aug.20 : U.S. President George W Bush has prided himself on his close personal relationships with foreign leaders, but according to a report in the Christian Science Monitor (CSM), some of those relationships appear to have gone disastrously awry in the past few weeks.

According to CSM, former Russian President and now Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is a case that backs this view.

In 2001, Bush viewed Putin as "trustworthy", but now in the wake of Russia's attack on Georgia, relations between the two and their respective countries, has probably reached the lowest point in years.

Another example is former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. Between 2001 and 2007, Bush viewed and always referred to Musharraf as Washington's key ally in the war against terrorism, but with Musharraf being forced to resign ahead of a proposed impeachment move by his political opponents, he (Bush) is now being forced to sin a different tune.

In the case of Musharraf, the US has backed away in its support in recent months, easing the transition to the elected civilian government. But that is a move that the administration should have taken in 2007, when Musharraf sacked about 60 judges, says Teresita Schaffer, director of the South Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Since the Eisenhower era, US chief executives have tended to support Pakistan's Army in its back-and-forth struggle for power with elected leaders, notes Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

But in the current case, Musharraf may have outlived his usefulness to the US. Although he was long hailed as an ally in the war on terror, in the end it was not clear whether he could push the nation's security forces to move against the Taliban.

Similarly, Bush cultivated a close relationship with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who has been a staunch US ally in Iraq.

According to the CSM, it was personality-driven geopolitics that blinded the Bush administration to President Saakashvili's recklessness.

Both the situation in Georgia and Pakistan's domestic political crisis will probably be problems that land in the next president's lap.

ANI