WASHINGTON: Thursday’s announcement that the United States is withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty marks the biggest victory yet for the unilateralist wing of the US administration and the biggest defeat for its beleaguered multi-lateralists, clustered behind Secretary of State Colin Powell.

President George W. Bush’s announcement sets the stage for the development and deployment of a national missile defence (NMD) system. It has long been a top priority for the US extreme right, which tried to scuttle the treaty even as then President Richard Nixon was negotiating it.

The move follows a string of unilateralist actions — ranging from the abandonment of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming to gutting the UN Conference on Small Arms — since his administration took office 11 months ago.

“President Bush is doing his best impression of Scrooge, telling the rest of the world ‘Bah humbug’,” said John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World, who warned that Washington’s action will encourage other countries to spurn their international obligations in pursuit of narrow national interests.

“Unilateralism harms US standing and credibility in the world,” said Isaacs. “When we need the rest of the world to cooperate in the war on terrorism, stem proliferation, enforce sanctions on law-breaking countries, prevent environmental degradation from spreading across borders, limit the flow of refugees, the rest of the world may tell the US, ‘Bah humbug’.”

NMD supporters in the administration reportedly decided to act now not only because of Putin’s refusal to amend the ABM treaty in a way that Washington wanted but also because public opinion has been much more favourable to NMD — as to Bush himself — since Sept 11 terrorist attacks in New York and at the Pentagon.

Arms-control groups, however, stress that there was no practical need for Washington to withdraw now.

“Complete testing of the centerpiece of the administration’s missile defence programme — the Ground-based Midcourse system — is allowed under the ABM Treaty,” noted the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Other types of missile defence system are still in the early stages of research, it said, adding, “there is no compelling technical reason to conduct any tests that would violate the treaty.”

“The ideologues within the administration — the same group that helped scuttle the Geneva conference to review and strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention — have won another battle to destroy arms control and permit the United States to act unilaterally abroad against the views of the rest of the world,” said Isaacs. —Dawn/The InterPress News Service.