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| Britain | ||
| The tragedy of this unequal partnership | ||
| 2003-03-31 | ||
| By opting to join the American hard Right, Tony Blair has made the gravest mistake of his political life. Shakespear would say: to be or not to be (a donkey) Will Hutton argues that, by opting to join the American hard Right, Tony Blair has made the gravest mistake of his political life, one from which he cannot recover. Blair's drawn face, with its deepening gullies set in a near permanent hard frown, tells the story. This is the internationalist who is aiding and abetting, however unintentionally, the break-up of the UN system. The pro-European who is the trigger of the most acute divisions in the European Union since its foundation. The wannabe progressive whose closest allies are Washington's neo-conservatives and conservative leaders in Italy and Spain. Worse, he is fighting a barely legitimate war that is already a military and diplomatic quagmire, where even eventual victory may not avert a political disaster.
He knows his capacity to survive the diplomatic humiliations piled on him by the Bush administration is limited; you cannot long lead Britain's centre and centre-left from such a compromised position, wounding not only the country's profoundest interests but torching any linkage with the progressive project. For the first time his premiership is genuinely at risk. Serves right It is a political tragedy, Shakespearean in the cruelty of its denouement. 9/11 accelerated trends in America that had been crystallising since the 1970s and which made the political structures in which successive British Governments have managed simultaneously to play both the American and European cards unsustainable. Blair was confronted with an invidious choice that nobody in the British establishment has wanted to make: Europe or America. Side with Europe to insist that the price of collaboration in the fight against terrorism had to be that the US observe genuinely multilateral international due process — and certainly say No to some of Washington's wilder aims. Or side with America insisting from the inside that it engaged in its wars multilaterally, and hope to bring Europe along in your wake. Either choice was beset with risk, but it's hard to believe that siding with Europe, for all its evident difficulties, would have produced an outcome worse than the situation in which we currently find ourselves: a protracted war with no second UN Resolution, no commitment to UN governance of post-war Iraq, no commitment to a mid-East peace settlement. But Blair misread the character of American conservatism, its grip on the American body politic and its scope for rationality. He continues to do so, the miscalculation of his life. Rumsfeld's exploded strategy is ideological in its roots. This conservatism is a witches brew — a menace to the USA and the world alike. The Observer Anti American???
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| Posted by:Murat |
| #10 I found this line particularly interesting: Side with Europe to insist that the price of collaboration in the fight against terrorism had to be that the US observe genuinely multilateral international due process — and certainly say No to some of Washington's wilder aims. In 1941, Franklin Roosevelt could very easily have told Churchill, "Sorry, Prime Minister, but Japan's actually attacked us. Germany's only said they're at war with us and it's not like we're going to run into the German fleet anywhere in the Pacific. Hang in there until we finish with Japan and we'll see what we can do." But we didn't. We fought the Japanese and the Germans for one simple reason. We thought Nazis were bad. We took over no European territory for our trouble, except for some graveyards. Old Europe, on the other hand, apparently can't fight Islamo-fascism, a murderous ideology that has killed and will kill again, simply because it is an evil that must be destroyed. No, they will join the fight for a price. They'll throw in with us only if we ratify Kyoto, join the International Criminal Court, get the Palestinians a homeland, and do whatever other chores they come up with. Will Hutton's inadvertently designed the Great Seal of the European Union. An image of Europa sitting in an Amsterdam red-light district shop window. |
| Posted by: Christopher Johnson 2003-03-31 22:04:50 |
| #9 Well, there's the rub, isn't it? The "unequal partnership." England will never be equal until they stop their slide into communism and let the market do what it needs to. Which, if you read samizdata, bits and pieces are coming close to communism. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-03-31 12:05:25 |
| #8 Hutton has some growing up to do. Unfortunately, it may be too late for that to happen for him. Tony Blair has joined the ranks of Disraeli and Churchill as British Prime Ministers that see something that NEEDS to be done, and does it, regardless of the consequences. He'll be remembered as another great statesman. As for Europe, it's mainly France, Germany, and Belgium that are objecting. France wants to be known as the "leader" of Europe, along with Germany. The rest are supposed to blindly follow. When that doesn't happen, France whines like the immature, self-centered brat it is. The sins of France are finally seeing the light of day, as we learn more and more about how they misused the "oil for food" program, and acted to circumvent the sanctions the United Nations placed against Saddam's Iraq. When the war ends, Bush and Blair will be in a position to allocate considerable business to both US and British countries, to direct the rebuilding of damaged infrastructure, and other direct financial benefits to their respective governments. The long-term payoff, however, will be the establishment of a government who will acknowledge those that have helped end the Hussein reign of terror, and to punish those who have contributed to that reign by supporting the brutality of the past thirty years. The world is about to undergo another major upheaval. The United Nations has proven repeatedly to be more a part of the problem than a part of the solution. The European Union has been shown to be a union in name only, and is in reality the whipping boy of French and German ambitions. The United States and Great Britain, on the other hand, have shown they are determined to place an end to Arab terrorism, and will do whatever is necessary to achieve that goal. The dedication of both Bush and Blair have caused the rest of the world to suddenly understand that the English-speaking nations of the world are not going to just roll over and let anyone else supplant them without a battle. The gloom and doom in this article is an attempt to forestall such a realization, because it will seriously undermine the author's illusions. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-03-31 12:02:24 |
| #7 Isn't this another opinion piece? |
| Posted by: flash91 2003-03-31 11:10:55 |
| #6 I agree -- where's the news in this piece? |
| Posted by: Tom 2003-03-31 11:00:22 |
| #5 Omigod, where to begin? "Shakespearean in the cruelty of its denouement"; "invidious choice" Talk about hand-wringing. No second UN resolution? There WAS a second resolution, dummy, and there were 15 category VII ones that followed (or was it 16?) Notice another gem: "Collaboration" No, Will Hutton, how about cooperation. Collaboration means what your French friends did during WWII. "Wilder aims"? Yeah, like get rid of WMD and regimes that want us hurt, REALLY HURT. No commitment to a UN governance of post-war Iraq? UN aid will be welcome, but not ever governance. Who runs Kosovo, BTW, these days? Really who runs it? Has the UN handled that one?I thought it was Kouchner, the Frenchie who founded Doctors Without Borders, at one point. Wasn't Kofi in charge of peacekeeping ops when Boutros was SG. Oh, yeah I want him involved in governing post-war Iraq. Plus who says the Iraqis will want anything to do with UN in governing their country? Mighty big assumption, Will; in fact, it sounds downright ARROGANT and UNILATERAL, not taking Iraqi opinion into consideration. And to top it off, Hutton calls Iraq Blair's gravest political mistake. Maybe, but Blair is thinking national security and WMD, pal. Blair will be able to go to bed for the rest of his life knowing he was being a leader who saw what was in front of him and knew that disarming Iraq necessitated taking down SH. So Tony's on the right track. Clinton made plenty of political victories with his Euro effite elites while in office, but events have shown he didn't care enough about National Security. Just remember the times Sudan offered Osama on a silver platter and Clinton couldn't make Justice or State find a reason to hold OBL. You know, due process trumps all in their minds. One more rant. I'm glad Wolfowitz sat down and typed up his plan in the wake of GWI's shortcomings. That's why those people get paid. Think out of the box and think big. |
| Posted by: Michael 2003-03-31 10:55:01 |
| #4 What is the news value of this opinion piece? |
| Posted by: Pink & Fluffy 2003-03-31 10:46:28 |
| #3 Hmm, this war has the support of over 70% of the American public. That's hardly the "Hard Right". More like the "Hard Right", "Hard Middle", "Soft Middle", Libertarians and just about anyone else who isn't "Hard Left". Sheesh! |
| Posted by: Scooter McGruder 2003-03-31 09:58:45 |
| #2 mugrat, my nickname for you, thanks for acknowledging that this is a legitimate war. due process and the un, no one gets due process at the un. an "exploded strategy" please, we are only 50 miles ouside of baghdad, we control the skies and we're slogging through the south. watch and wonder what liberty is all about. V |
| Posted by: Timmy the Wonder Dog 2003-03-31 09:36:22 |
| #1 I wish my country had a leader brave enough to join this "unequal partnership". Oh, we have one. The leader of the opposition. A woman. Unfortunately elections are only due in 2006. I guess the war will be over by then. It might be more than a coincidence that she grew up in East Germany: a country that would still be under communist rule had another US president not looked the Soviets in the eyes until they blinked. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2003-03-31 09:29:03 |