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Ad Hoc Interventions?
Bush, Rice and Latin America
...The appointment of Robert Zoellick as Under-Secretary of State also does not bode well for Latin America. Zoellick's crusade for the free trade model and corporate privileges has caused him to dig in when the U.S. should have been negotiating. The WTO ministerial in Cancun broke down due to the combined intransigence of Zoellick's team and the European Union's Pascal Lamy,4 and talks over the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas have arrived at a stalemate due to the same intransigence.
Zoellick's style of trade negotiation has been characterized by a hard-line unconditionality combined with personal arrogance. Brazilians still smart over his 2002 remark that if the country didn't like the FTAA offered by the United States it could always head south, to trade with Antarctica .
Much to Zoellick's chagrin, that is exactly what Brazil is doing. Bypassing the penguins, Brazil has sought to form alliances with Southern countries both in the Americas and on other continents. In so doing it seeks to improve its bargaining position--and that of other developing countries--in trade negotiations. The formation of the Community of South American Nations and the association of Andean nations to Mercosur both form steps along the path of alternative regional integration.
http://www.counterpunch.com/carlsen02052005.html
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Robert Zoellick: a Bush Family Man
...Robert Zoellick, who enjoys long-distance running, has a long track record in the economic policy and diplomatic affairs of Republican administrations since the late 1980s. During the second Reagan administration, Zoellick, who began his career as a Harvard-educated lawyer, served as a special assistant at the Treasury Department. During the Bush Sr. administration, Zoellick became a key figure shaping post-Cold War economic policy as a senior officer in both the Treasury and State Departments and a personal adviser to the elder Bush.
...A protÈgÈ of James Baker, who served as treasury secretary during the Reagan administration and secretary of state during the Bush Sr. administration, Zoellick has close ties to the Bush family. He was an adviser to Governor George W. Bush and served as a foreign policy adviser to presidential candidate Bush.
...Zoellick was perhaps the first Bush associate to introduce the concept of evil into the construct of Bushs radical overhaul of U.S. grand strategy. A year before Bush was inaugurated, Zoellick wrote: A modern Republican foreign policy recognizes that there is still evil in the worldpeople who hate America and the ideas for which it stands. Today, we face enemies who are hard at work to develop nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, along with the missiles to deliver them. The United States must remain vigilant and have the strength to defeat its enemies. People driven by enmity or by a need to dominate will not respond to reason or goodwill. They will manipulate civilized rules for uncivilized ends.
...In 1998 Zoellick joined a group of neoconservatives and militarists, many of whom would later form the upper ranks of George W. Bushs foreign policy teams, in signing statements of the neocon Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The statements among other things called for increased military budgets and a policy of regime change in Iraq.
http://www.counterpunch.com/barry01142005.html
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