May 11, 2006
Interview with Ambassador Simonyi on "Klubrádió"

 

Klubrádió (Kr): “Home Sweet Home?” Our ambassador in Washington has come home in the middle of coalition talks that are expected to draw up the list of cabinet members in the new Gyurcsány government. Your name had been floated before as a potential candidate for foreign minister. Mr. Ambassador, please say either yes or no. Have you come home for all the suspected reasons?

András Simonyi: No, no. I came home because Delta Air Lines has just launched a new service to Budapest, which is obviously not being launched to coincide with the coalition talks but because they have determined that Hungary and Budapest are an up-and-coming economic…

Kr: Forgive me, but the link is nevertheless there; you did after all come home now. The new Delta service aside, one may surmise that your name has come up again as future foreign minister.

AS: No, one may not surmise anything based on that. I have a passion, that just happens to be my job, which is the strengthening, building of U.S. – Hungarian ties. There is no connection whatsoever between my current visit and the fact that people are obviously interested in the names being floated for the various cabinet posts. I am not preoccupied with any of that.

Kr: Is that because you are not interested? Or is it because you have not been approached?

AS: Let’s just say that I am simply not preoccupied with it.

Kr: I see. Now then, as Hungary’s ambassador to the U.S., how do you see the America where the president’s popularity has reached an all-time low, and keeps on plummeting by the day? How is the America that has, to put it mildly, been embroiled in a failure that is Iraq, arguably a military victory, but not a war that has been won? And how do you see the America that, one might fear, may even go as far as engaging in a military conflict with Iran?

AS: You will not be surprised to hear that I don’t agree with the many remarks you have just made. The America that I am serving in is a country which is still trying to find its old self. Four years ago, it had confronted a new phenomenon, namely, the fact that it is no longer invulnerable and untouchable, and it is trying to face this challenge. The U.S. is still the most powerful of our allies and is the leading military power in NATO, the alliance that guarantees Hungary’s security. But the America I am working in right now is also a colorful country, riven by internal disputes and given to self-doubt. It is unbelievably interesting to follow from within the ongoing debate between Democrats and Republicans, and within the Republican Party itself. To me, it is very exciting to see that if you commit an economic or political crime in the U.S., sooner or later you are going to pay for it. This is what happened, if you remember, in the infamous Enron case, which was a large-scale financial scam, and this goes for the recent spate of internal leaks as well.

Kr.: I would like to go back to the Iraq war and the downfall of the Saddam regime. I personally believe that Saddam’s removal from power was a successful operation but I also think that this is a war that the U.S. has not been able to win. The war is obviously not yet over since the war on terror, of which Iraq is only one theater, will go on in the Far East, Middle East, and Southeast Asia. How is this perceived in the U.S.? The same way the failure in Vietnam was perceived? Is president Bush’s loss of popularity related to the failure in Iraq – the fact there is no visible program of consolidation there?

AS: I would not call it a failure. I would rather say that democratization and economic rebuilding in Iraq are not happening as fast as had been expected by the U.S. I do agree however that no one had foreseen the present situation. I also agree that the military operation was successful and that rebuilding is not nearly as successful. Of course, one must factor in that it is not easy to build a democracy on foundations like these. I still believe that it is in the interest of all of us in this region, in the world even, that this work is not cut short and that we support the democratic process in Iraq. This is not only an American interest anymore, but also a European interest because Iraq is in our back yard, so to speak. The U.S. and Europe now agree that this work must be completed. And we are on track to achieve this.

I would not like to speculate on the reasons for the president’s unpopularity. The are multiple reasons with many different factors playing into them. A part of it is how soon the authorities reacted after hurricane Katrina, even if this does not fall within the personal responsibility of the president but raises issues concerning certain agencies led by him. It is a very complex question. Let me add also that the U.S. is before mid-term elections and there is already a lot of infighting going on in anticipation of the next presidential elections. This is why things have been a bit quirky lately and this is partly why the president’s popularity has plummeted.

Kr: Mr. Ambassador, as far as I know you were accompanied on the Delta flight to Budapest by former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who spent an hour over coffee with Prime Minister Gyurcsány. Were you also there at their meeting?

AS: Yes, I was.

Kr: How did the meeting between Kissinger and Gyurcsány go?

AS: It was unbelievably interesting. I would even go as far as to call it a philosophical discussion in many ways. What was especially interesting, and on which there was full agreement among us, is the notion that Europe, including Hungary, must realize that the world is going forward and Asia is catching up with Europe with enormous strides…

Kr: What has transpired is Kissinger suggested that Asia, the Far East and the even farther East, such as China and Indonesia, will be the defining economies in the years to come.

AS: This was a very interesting discussion. By the way, it coincided with the visit of the famed journalist Thomas Friedman, whose book about globalization, entitled “The World is Flat,” has been widely popular. Kissinger merely posited as fact, cautioned even, that if we, Hungary included, do not realize what we have to do to make ourselves more competitive, what criteria we must fulfill, well, then we just might be left behind. In earlier times it was companies and countries who had to be competitive. Nowadays individuals have to be competitive as well. Now, U.S.- Hungarian relations are important precisely because we have been able to free these ties from the grip of security issues. Hungarian-American ties are no longer primarily about security policy.

Kr: What exactly do you mean by security policy?

AS: I mean it’s not only about NATO, Iraq, and Afghanistan anymore but about Hungary and the U.S. joining forces to remain in the camp of competitive nations.

Kr: In other words, you are saying that we are not only judged by whether we are good guys or bad guys – whether we join an international coalition, say, in Iraq? If we join, we are the good guys, and if we do not, than we are the baddies? I mean, in the future.

AS: Hungary has proven that it can commit the necessary equipment and forces in bad times. However, today it is much more important, for example, that the U.S. secretary of energy visited Hungary at the invitation of János Kóka on his way back from a G8 meeting in Moscow. This is truly unique. It’s also important that communication between U.S. and Hungarian leaders has become routine. President Bush was among to first to call and congratulate Ferenc Gyurcsány. This is a big deal.

Kr: Why? Is that not customary?

AS: That does not happen to all countries and is not done routinely and in such a timely manner. Or take the fact that President Bush honored our March 15 reception held in commemoration of our revolutions. We had been told that the president would be out campaigning this coming October 23 and wouldn’t have the time to attend then so he came to honor Hungary now. This is not routine, either. These are all indications that Hungary is on the radar screen in Washington, so to speak.

Kr: Where on the radar screen? In the middle or on the periphery?

AS: I would say in the middle. I believe that to the extent that any small country is in the middle – and great powers still take center stage – we are very close to being there. And I am very proud of it.

Kr: It is now ten years since I last visited the State Department in Washington. There, in the Hungary desk officer’s room, there was a gigantic map of the Balkans, and Hungary was on it.

AS: No, no. Hungary has not been treated like that for a long time now. Hungary is grouped with the Danes, Swedes, Norwegians and the Dutch now. And this is a good thing.

Kr: Mr. Ambassador, in a word, what does it mean when George Bush calls Ferenc Gyurcsány to congratulate; when Tony Blair comes to visit, albeit at a party rally; when Angela Merkel, even before becoming chancellor, meets Gyurcsány; and when President Putin comes to Hungary as the first Russian leader in a century? And what does it mean that, when EU countries had been on the verge of an agreement about the common budget, it was Ferenc Gyurcsány and the Hungarian government whose last-minute intervention secured more money for Hungary? And I do not mean to blow the prime minister’s trumpet here. My question is: Is this Hungarian foreign policy at work? Or is this only PR politics?

AS: One should not be ashamed to say that the achievements of the past fifteen years are being recognized here. Especially the achievements of the last four, or I should say, one and a half years. Another way to put it is that even large nations need allies and no country is so small as to be unable to play a very important positive role. Hungary has found an area where it can play a positive role. If we continue with these endeavors – and, considering the fact that a lot of hard work and respectable decision-making went into it, it is an endeavor – then Hungary will be able to hold onto this position.

I would like to emphasize one thing though: The competition in Washington is enormous; 196 countries vie for the attention of the same fifteen to twenty people. We have our work cut out. But it can be done.

Kr: Are you visiting with a different senator every day? How is this done in practice?

AS: As far as it’s possible, I do visit with senators, representatives or the CEOs of big U.S. firms – or even in the White House, where I have ties to people close to the president. This is how it works. The United States is a hungry – I would not say beast, no, not an animal, but a hungry something that needs to be fed every day. We are determined to do this on a daily basis. And our successes have been spectacular so far.

Kr: If that is so, if Hungary is on the radar screen, somewhere in the middle, then why do we still need a visa to visit the U.S.?

AS: Hungarians are not the only ones who need visas. I firmly believe that this will be history in a couple of years. Americans in general, and certainly the administration, have a particular phobia in this regard. They are making a mistake, however, when they fear our visitors. Congress and the administration are pointing the finger at each other. The American arguments are not very strong, though. Ours are better. Our argument is that you can only build a strong relationship through people-to-people contacts. We always stress that our experts don’t want to stay in the U.S. – they just want to obtain some experience and come back home. Our arguments are good. I am sure that in a couple of years this will be all behind us.