A New World Order?

Already, this week's stunning terrorist blows against America appear to have profoundly altered the Bush administration's approach to the rest of the world.

Days ago, foreign leaders were fretting that a disengaged United States was heading down a unilateralist path. Now the US is reaching out to friend and foe alike as it seeks to build an international coalition to fight the scourge of terrorism.

Suddenly, President Bush is dealing with international relations much more in the style of his father, who rallied a broad coalition to fight the Gulf War. That is important, observers say, because the task now facing the son is a similar one: working from an initial base of close allies to construct an "inclusive" coalition that doesn't end up in a clash of civilizations that would only make things worse.

Both President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have spent many hours since Tuesday consulting with world leaders. They have won solid words of support for cooperation in the fight against terrorism from European leaders, as well as from Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

The diplomatic press has paid off, at least so far. The US has won unprecedented solidarity from NATO, which on Wednesday invoked for the first time an article of its charter that in effect interprets an attack like Tuesday's in the US as an act against all 19 NATO members. The move does not obligate the members to join the US in an eventual military action, but does ensure assistance from NATO countries once the US decides to act.

China's eagerness to open channels of cooperation with the US reflects a desire to keep the US acting within the UN framework and not limiting its international response to work with the Europeans, analysts say.

Critical now, observers say, is for the Bush administration to work from this initial base to build an "inclusive" coalition of countries, including moderate Arab states and Islamic regimes. Now as during the Gulf war, anti-American sentiment runs deep in many of these countries. The danger would be letting an international fight against terrorism devolve into a global clash between the West and Islam.

"It would be catastrophic to allow this to result in a clash of civilizations," says Strobe Talbott, former deputy secretary of state under President Clinton. "[To avoid that] it is essential the US define the coalition in an inclusive way [with] all parts of the civilized world. It must be remembered that many, many victims of this kind of terrorism have been Muslim."

Americans shouldn't expect to see creation of the kind of military coalition that Bush senior put together before attacking Iraq. According to analysts, this international alliance against terrorism is likely to work more on sharing intelligence and improving shared security measures. "When [Powell] uses 'coalition' he is talking about a sustained counter-terrorism operation, not preparing for a war in the sense of a military force," says Anthony Cordesman, a counter terrorism expert here.

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