PARIS, Feb 6: French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine on Wednesday openly criticized “simplistic” US foreign policy as signs of dissent grew in the ranks of the global coalition against terrorism.

Two days after the United States unveiled plans for the biggest increase in military spending since the Cold War, Vedrine warned that the interests of the world were under threat from US unilateralism.

It was the strongest sign of dissent so far from a senior US coalition ally since President George W. Bush labelled Iran, Iraq and North Korea an “axis of evil” during his State of the Union speech last week.

“Today we are threatened by a simplism that reduces all the problems of the world to the struggle against terrorism and is not properly thought through,” Vedrine told France Inter radio.

The United States, he said, acted “unilaterally, without consulting others, taking decisions based on its own view of the world and its own interests ... refusing any multilateral negotiation that could limit their decision-making, sovereignty and freedom of action.”

Vedrine also criticized what has become known as the Bush doctrine — the subordination of all foreign policy to the needs of the “war against terrorism” — and of unilateralism in general.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jack Straw last week said Bush’s attack on so-called rogue states was “best understood by the fact there are mid-term congressional elections coming up in November”, while German foreign ministry State Secretary Ludger Volmer has said the “terror argument cannot be used to settle old scores” with Iraq.

In Saudi Arabia, an official source quoted by the Arab newspaper Al-Hayatis said Riyadh was opposed to any US military strike on Iraq as part of a future phase of the war.

“The kingdom does not favour a US military operation against Iraq,” the source said, adding that Washington “has not broached with Saudi officials the possibility of carrying out a strike against Iraq.”

The use of Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan Air Base and other military facilities is seen as essential for the success of any US campaign against Iraq.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Tuesday said Bush’s choice of words to describe the three states was “deserving”, but that the United States was not about to invade any of them.

In Iran, South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma also expressed anxiety about the direction of US policy, saying the United States was not the only country determined to wipe out terrorism.

She said on the final day of her three-day trip that “operations must be carried out under the United Nations leadership”.

Bush on Monday announced an unprecedented 2.128-trillion-dollar proposed budget for next year, calling for the largest US military buildup since the early 1980s to fight his global war on terror.—AFP