The 2004 US presidential election will be a referendum on the Bush doctrine of preemptive military action, George Soros, the financier and philanthropist declared today.
But getting rid of Mr Bush is not enough, Mr Soros argued, saying that the US needs an alternative vision. The man who famously who made a fortune betting against the pound in the late 80s, said America had "gone off the rails" after September 11 and that it was important to "puncture the bubble of American supremacy."
In London to promote his latest book, The Bubble of American Surpremacy - a tirade against the Bush administration - Mr Soros told a packed auditorium at the London School of Economics that he was prepared to use some of his vast fortune to turf Mr Bush out of the White House.
Reiterating his willingness to put his money where his mouth is, Mr Soros said: "I am ready to step in to rectify the disparity of money for Bush and against Bush."
Pointing out that Open Society, the foundation he created to promote democracy around the world has $450m (£248.4m) in assets, Mr Soros said he was prepared to commit about $12.5m to "political action" against Mr Bush. In fact, Mr Soros told the Washington Post in January that he has donated $15.5m to groups dedicated to prising Mr Bush out of the Oval Office.
Expressing his concern at what he saw as a critical lack of debate on Mr Bush's policies, Mr Soros said the president had wrapped himself in the flag and accused the administration of having created an "Orwellian truth machine that manufactures truth."
"It is ironic that the government of the most successful open society in the world should have fallen into the hands of ideologues who ignore the first principles of open society," Mr Soros writes in the Bubble of American Supremacy. "Who would have thought... that the US itself could pose a threat to open society? Yet that is what is happening, both internally and internationally."
If Americans voted Mr Bush out in November, Mr Soros said, the Bush doctrine would be seen as an aberration is US foreign policy, if not then the world would have to live with the consequences. Mr Soros was not asked which Democratic candidate he favoured, but he indicated how tough it would be to beat the president because of the rude health of the US economy.
"Karl Rove (Mr Bush's top political strategist) has done an extremely good job in pumping up the economy - he is the one who runs the economy - and they have made a more or less jobless, but profitful recovery. It's been very successful. The price will be paid in 2005 and afterwards," Mr Soros said.
The Hungarian émigré said, however, that turfing Mr Bush out was not enough. Mr Soros urged the development of what he called the community of democracies that could form a more effective multilateral bloc outside the UN.
"The formation of an influential democratic bloc of nations would change the character of the UN, making it more effective in influencing the behaviour of its members," Mr Soros writes in his book. "Repressive regimes would be excluded from active decision making; failed states could be put under protection of the UN. The currently insoluble problem of using the UN to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign states could be on the way to a solution."
