Why is America's "understanding" of our country's problems so important? And to tell the truth, I don't quite understand what Bush's "understanding" means. Does he now "condone" it? Or does he merely acknowledge the fait accompli and now plan to go on doing business with Thailand? Or was he just being nice on a much-watched world stage?

Using the logic of anti-coup critics, why should we care that much? America is just one country, and thus its "vote" on the coup should be counted as one. I mean, those poor Chinese leaders. They were among the first to express full "understanding" of Thailand's situation in the most unequivocal and sincerest manner but didn't get the attention or appreciation they deserved. Too much for the one-man-one-vote principle.

Someone in the news room pointed at The Nation's headline "Bush 'understands Thai coup'" and wondered out loud whether the president might have been misquoted or his body gestures to interim Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Hanoi misinterpreted. I explained that putting "understands Thai coup" in quotes meant we left it to our readers to judge after absorbing the whole report. That could have been Bush's real intention after all.

Don't get me wrong. It was nice to hear that the world's biggest democracy is at least trying to come to terms with what's going on here. But giving America too much importance will defeat one of the foremost anti-coup arguments - that what happened in this country was the result of an elite few trying to impose their political values on the poor majority.

You may ask why The Nation played up the Bush story. Well, hands up on this one, but some diplomatic traditions die hard - especially those imprinted in journalists' heads. The world has changed. If America degrades ties with Thailand following a bloodless coup that toppled a corrupt regime while allowing hundreds of billions of investment dollars to pour into China without demanding Beijing show its road map for democracy first, then so be it.

The point is, it's time we got back to business. Like Thaksin, the September 19 coup has divided the world into two irreconcilable camps. Bush and his advisers have done the best they can, considering there must have been scores of body-language readers closely monitoring his every gesture towards Surayud. After measuring and interpreting the length of his walk across the room to greet the Thai prime minister and trying to read the significance of Bush touching Surayud's upper arm, we can leave the US president alone now.

At the end of the day, it's every individual country's right to choose its own path. The interim rulers have promised reform to build a new democracy that is more sustainable and not prone to abuse or corruption, and they must concentrate on that. It is the Thais' yearning for clean, transparent and accountable politics that they should really care about. Cold shoulders from the likes of Germany or other European Union countries may persist, but we will have to live with that.

If the world cannot understand that Thailand's version of Aung San Suu Kyi - who has been shopping, golfing and sunbathing round the globe - was abusing and hiding behind "democracy", there's nothing we can do about it. If the ongoing revelations about tax fraud and other graft cases are perceived as part of an "imperfect democracy" that will improve with time and is 10 times better than full-blown dictatorship, there's no point worrying too much how the international community views this country.

Surayud returned from the Apec meeting unscathed, thanks to his speech-writers. But if there's any lesson for the interim rulers, it's the truth that international image is highly overrated and sometimes comes cheap if you have enough mega-projects and lucrative free-trade deals to make foreign investors drool.

The interim leaders must not fall into the same trap as the man once called "Thai Con". Whether or not Bush understands the coup is not as important as whether the coup-makers themselves understand their proclaimed mission.

If they don't, then this country will return to the brink, and no friend's understanding can save us.

Tulsathit Taptim