ANALYST:WITH BUSH ELECTION, US FOREIGN POLICY'S FOCUS FURTHER FROM CROATIA

ZAGREB, Jan 10 (Hina) - With the election of Republican George W. Bush to the post of the United States' President, the focus of the US foreign policy will be shifted from the Balkans to strategically important areas such as the Middle East, Russia and China, a Croatian political analyst, Damir Grubisa, has assessed. "We can expect that the foreign policy of the Bush Administration will be 'the adjusted neo-realistic doctrine' which determines important and unimportant areas in the world," Grubisa said at a panel discussion on the effects the change of American presidents would produce on Croatia. "Strategically important areas for the United States are countries that produce oil and big countries such as Russia and China," Grubisa said at the Zagreb panel, organised by the Association for Research of Transition toward Democracy (TOD), on Wednesday evening. According to Grubisa, the Clinton Administration's 'neo-liberal' policy put the emphasis on the international co-operation, the development of democracy and respect for human rights, whereas Republicans will pay more attention to the national security. He also predicted that Croatia would be more interesting for the new US administration, if it "integrates successfully in its own region in the economic sense." The TOD president, professor Bogdan Denic, believed that the military and industrial sector heads would direct the US policy regarding the Balkans. For him, this sector pressures countries in the region to upgrade their arms and buy up-to-date American weapons. Denic also supposes that Bush will be a weak president, and mostly right-wing members of the new administration will conduct the foreign policy. He maintains that the new Administration will not approve new assistance to the region. "The assistance forwarded to Yugoslavia is actually to the detriment of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, regardless of what some claim, and there will be no new funds," he said at the panel discussion. The United States will try to get out of the situation in the Balkans, leaving problems to the European Union, but it will also try to retain a dominant role in NATO, he added. (hina) ms