Not usually known as a world traveler, President George W. Bush has recently been behaving like an itinerant Lonely Planet ghost writer. On November 21, he and his 300-person entourage -- including Ms. Bush and US Secretary of State Condi Rice -- stopped off in Mongolia for four hours on the last leg of an 8-day whirlwind tour through Asia.
With the mass protests of early November in Buenos Aires and Seoul still ringing in their ears, it must have been a relief to be greeted in Ulaan Bataar by just thre
e well-mannered lonely souls with one placard, urging the US to sign the Kyoto Agreement.
The President could also take enormous pride in the fact that he is the very first US President in history to have visited Mongolia -- a land-locked, Alaska-sized grassy flatland with a per capita income below $500 and 2.8 million people, a third of whom are sheep herders, live in round huts called "yurts," and dine on endless varieties of mutton stew.
Later, in a speech before a packed assembly of Mongolian
troops and lawmakers, Bush declared that the US is now Mongolia’s
“third neighbor.” According to the President, 
the two countries are “standing together as brothers
in the cause of freedom…..” He added that Mongolia is "an example of success for the region and for the world… a free society
in the heart of Central Asia.”
No, really. These hyperbolic assertions must have been somewhat perplexing to Mongolia's neighbors, Russia and China. But
they no doubt amused and delighted the Mongolians, who gave Bush a thunderous ovation.
What was this mutual admiration all about? Does Mongolia really deserve all this praise because it has indeed established a thriving market democracy?
Or do the tributes perhaps have more to do with the fact that Mongolia has volunteered for two very difficult assignments -- a prolonged series of neoliberal economic policy experiments, and die-hard duty in the rapidly dwindling "Coalition of the Less-and-Less Willing?"