WHO'S ON THIRD?

Bush's Poodle?: The plight of Tony Blair--and American Democrats (Will Hutton, 6/01/03, American Prospect)

One of the problems in arguing with neoconservatives is that they have taken the high idealistic ground. They want freedom for Iraqis, democracy in the Middle East, an Islamic enlightenment. They insist that universal human rights are also the prerogative of Muslims, shedding the residual racism that dogs the liberal position with all its (even if well-founded) concern that contemporary Islam is an impossibly hostile climate in which to foster democracy and liberal capitalism. If liberals counter the neocons with doubts about whether Muslims are ready for democracy and doggedly defend uninspiring international institutions, they have lost the argument. There has to be an international and multilateral idealism to counter the one held by conservatives. That Blair fought the war using a very different rhetoric than Bush has been important for the liberal cause; indeed, Blair would argue that he helped to keep the flame of liberal internationalism alive in the United States.

Equally, Bush has debts to Blair, and the president can't be comfortable that he owes them to a foreign leader who freely acknowledges taking counsel from Bill Clinton throughout the Iraq War. Clinton saw the importance of having a Blair Democrat position; he also saw that Bush would have to make concessions to his British ally, and that this would provide the Democrats with crucial political cover. In short, Blair has become, if not a kingmaker in American politics, a very helpful source of political capital -- and it is up to the Democrats to use it.

The trouble is that Bush and the neocons are wise to this risk. While they are careful to praise Blair in public, in private they calculate that he must not be allowed to derail their project. In my new book, A Declaration of Interdependence, I argue that too few people inside and outside America comprehend the ambition of the American conservative project and its ideological hostility -- both internally to any conception of an American social contract undergirding social mobility and opportunity and externally to any constraint on the exercise of preemptive autonomous American power. Moreover, the conservative coalition is deeply rooted and very powerful. It is a dangerous challenge both to the well-being of most ordinary American citizens at home and to the fragile processes that legitimize globalization abroad. If Blair and Clinton think they have held back the conservative advance, they can think again. [...]

The European Union and the United States should not be competing power blocks; they have to acknowledge their interdependence and shared interest. The United States should not be shouldering the burden of democratizing and reconstructing Iraq alone, not least because it radically reduces the chances of long-run success. The European Union should recognize that the emergence of radical Islamic terrorism has changed the rules of the game. But to reach that outcome requires more bravery from Democratic politicians in the United States -- and more realism from France and Germany.

It also requires smarter politics from Blair. American neoconservatives understand the language of power. Blair needs to say "no" to their ambitions and offer a multilateral alternative that rallies Britain's EU partners to that option and opens up more opportunities for American liberals. He has to work harder at bringing Chirac and Schroeder onside, and at standing up to Bush. There would then be a concrete policy alternative that Democrats could argue for. The difficulty is that third-way politicians fight their battles through serpentine triangulation rather than confronting the enemy head-on. Blair and Britain are paying a heavy price for this approach and the miscalculation over what neoconservative America wants. So is the American liberal tradition.

By "social contract" the author, of course, means the iopposite: a government welfare state. But once we accept that change to his scenario, it's entirely fair to characterize conservatives as he does--hostile to that State and to the surrender of national sovereignty to transnational bodies. The Left, on the other hand, supports not just welfare states in particular but the creation of a kind of super-state devoid of national sovereignty--imagine the UN as a true governing body. So, if Mr. Blair and Mr. Clinton do represent a Third Way, don't they have top try and seek some kind of middle ground here? Mr. Hutton seems to be suggesting that they are obligated to act as the Left, when their stated intention has been to break with the Left. How would siding with EUnuchs like Chirac and Schroeder amount to steering a middle course? Posted by Orrin Judd at May 23, 2003 12:06 AM