March 11, 2003
ROGUE POWER?:
France has few friends because it has so little to offer (Paul Johnson, Opinion Journal, 3/11/2003)France is playing the peace card because it is the only one it holds. But for fragile entities like Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, France, which recently failed to impose its military will on a small West African state (the Ivory Coast), has nothing to offer. In the end, as Hobbes pointed out, covenants are useless without swords to enforce them....The EU, far from being an embodiment of the rule of law, as Mr. Kagan argues, is fundamentally corrupt and in a sense lawless. French governments invariably break or ignore its rules when they conflict with national interests. Jacques Chirac is an opportunist with a long record of malfeasance. If he did not enjoy ex officio immunity, he would be under indictment. His current anti-Americanism is in part an effort to win over his accusers on the left....
I trust that American policy makers will not accept the view that basic differences exist between America and Europe. What they should try to avoid are entangling alliances in which a single rogue power, like France, has the right to inhibit America's pursuit of her vital national interests.
The long diplomatic interlude between the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq has forced national leaders to declare themselves. It has separated the serious from the unserious, those who care about the civilized order from those who have higher priorities, those governed by the universal law of justice from those who can condone any evil.
And lo, which nation has emerged as the world's leading "rogue power"? If Jacques Chirac had intentionally sought to undermine the world's respect for France, he could not have been more effective.
Posted by Paul Jaminet at March 11, 2003 9:37 AMOh yes, it has divided the serious from the unserious. And it has isolated the US. The only allies left are politically dead : Blair is toast, Howard has already been voted down in one chamber of his parliament, Aznar and Berlusconi go against 95 % of their electorates (who want the US to disappear from the face of the earth) etc...
All of this was inevitable (another Clintonian in the White House would only have postponed this outcome), but now the questions are : 1) can the US win against the entire world ? 2) does it have the will to do so ?
Peter - I have no doubt that there will be political casualties among U.S. allies, but our side will win the political war. I think the publics of various countries simply haven't thought through the issues as deeply as their leaders. As time goes on, the European public will migrate to the positions of the Blair-Aznar-Berlusconi 8 and the Vilnius 10. And then it will be France, Germany, and Belgium who are alone against the world.
And yes, if our national security is persuasively at stake, the US will have the will.
Peter,
One can understand the pessimism, but the assumption that France's position commands the respect of the rest of Europe's governing elites (with the exceptions of Germany and Belgium) has already proven fallacious; and I believe that Chirac's status within France itself will wither once it becomes clear precisely what has motivated his behavior.
With Schroeder's tenuous political position still further eroded, and France's European posturing and support for Iraq revealed for what it is, the unholy alliance of France, Germany, Russia, and, likely, China, together with those Arab countries that still support Iraq looks to me like something that any decent being would feel honor in opposing.
Regarding the populations of those countries, that is another matter, it is true. And yet, if one believes, as I do, that most of the anti-war crowd are decent, if deluded (but not hopelessly so, I hope!), then once it becomes quite clear what the American agenda is, and what the US (it is hoped) will be able to accomplish for the people of Iraq and the Middle East, then those decent people will, even if reluctantly, become more convinced of the rightness of the action.
(There will always be those, of course, who will not be able to change their minds.)
Thus I think it fair to say, that despite the setbacks, the lights have not yet gone out. In fact, the encouraging signs are out there, and the tide may have, in fact, turned.
Still, there is nothing that can replace the action that seems inevitable. One may hope that it be surgical and quick; and that the aftermath and recovery will be built on firm and lasting foundations.
I doubt "Blair is toast". It's a hard time but he seems to be solid. Even if he was 'toast' though, there may be a silver lining to that i.e. civil war amongst the labourites and a halt to any slide to EU integration (one of his more objectionable sides).
Posted by: Alastair at March 11, 2003 7:45 PMI've often felt that Blair, no matter what one thinks, has been truly heroic.
In any event, it's hard for me to see at this point how EU integration can work for Britain, unless the Brits acquiesce in being under someone else's heel. I wonder, in fact, if the EU will soon be "toast."