It's foreign policy, stupid!

It looks as though Bill Clinton's famous 1992 claim "It's the economy, stupid!" might be replaced by "It's foreign policy, stupid!" in this November's American presidential election.

According to a recent opinion poll conducted by the American Pew Research Centre, foreign policy has emerged as the single most important issue in the election campaign. Forty-one per cent of those questioned said that war, foreign policy and terrorism were the most important challenges facing the United States. Only 26 per cent said economic issues presented the greatest challenge.

This is the first time since the end of the Cold War that foreign policy has played such an important part in an American presidential election. The 1992, 1996 and 2000 elections were dominated to a great extent by domestic issues, but before that, when the United States played a major role in containing communism, foreign policy was always a key issue in any election. This usually favoured the Republicans, who were seen as being able to stand up to the Soviet Union. The Democrats, on the other hand, were often portrayed as being soft on Communism and consequently were often defeated at the polls.

The voters' preoccupation with war, foreign policy and terrorism is not at all surprising. September 11 changed the political landscape in America and created a siege mentality in the country, the war in Iraq has not been easy for many people to come to terms with, international terrorism is on the increase and the United States has found itself increasingly isolated over a number of international issues. It is perfectly understandable, therefore, that foreign and security affairs have dominated the public debate.

So will President Bush be re-elected, considering that the Republicans are usually at an advantage when it comes to foreign policy? It would probably seem so but I should add a bit of caution here. The polls show some interesting results: Mr Bush has the edge over Mr Kerry in the campaign against terrorism but on broader foreign policy issues more people think Mr Kerry would be better at dealing with the international community and with America's allies.

I am not at all surprised with this trend. When your country is under threat - as America is from international terrorism, voters tend to rally around their commander-in-chief and their flag, and expect to hear tough talk from their President, which they do. President Bush has adopted an uncompromising stand against international terrorism and in an election this can only be to his advantage.

On the other hand it is also true that President Bush and his conservative administration have managed to polarise and divide American society and public opinion on international issues and foreign policy, and this is indeed regrettable. The consensus that once existed among American society on foreign policy matters has unfortunately become a thing of the past.

The fact is that under the Bush administration the US has become more isolated than it ever was and its differences with its allies have widened considerably. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that voters think Senator Kerry would do a better diplomatic job than President Bush.

Regarding the war in Iraq, the polls show the two candidates neck and neck over which one of them would best handle this war. While this conflict will certainly be a major issue in the election, neither of the two candidates are particularly comfortable talking about it and both have to tread very carefully. President Bush has to keep in mind that the war has dragged on, American troops are sustaining casualties every day, no weapons of mass destruction were ever found, no link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda has emerged and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein did not produce any victory against international terrorism.

On the other hand, Mr Kerry has to be careful in the way he criticises the war in Iraq, keeping in mind that he had voted for the war when he was in the Senate. Furthermore, the fact remains that a dangerous madman who was a threat to the stability of the whole region has been removed from power, that Iraq now has a chance - although difficult, of becoming a democracy, and that Mr Kerry cannot sound unpatriotic at a time when Americans are being killed on a daily basis in Iraq.

While Mr Kerry's cautious foreign policy approach is understandable, he cannot simply sit back and wait for his opponent to make mistakes. He must prove that he will be a better foreign policy President than Mr Bush. He has already criticised the President's decision to bring back 70,000 US troops from Asia and Europe as being ill-timed and recently repeated his promise to use force to defend the US whenever necessary and to increase the size of the US military. This is fine but still has to convince Americans that he will do a better job than Mr Bush in fighting terrorism.

If the opinion of Ed Koch, former mayor of New York, is anything to go by, then Mr Kerry is in for a hard time. Mr Koch, a liberal Democrat, recently stated that he was going to vote for Mr Bush, a Republican, because this election is primarily about the war on terrorism. He said that he disagreed entirely with all Mr Bush's domestic policies but this was irrelevant in the circumstances as President Bush was the best candidate to defeat terrorism. If a liberal such as Ed Koch feels comfortable with voting for Mr Bush, then Mr Kerry should really start worrying.