June 1, 2003
HIT 'EM WHERE IT HURTS - IN THEIR PRIDE
Memo to Bush: Europe Is Listening (Anne Applebaum, Washington Post, 5/28/2003)"Punish France, isolate Germany, forgive Russia" is how his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is alleged to have described it -- and this does, more or less, seem to be the plan....
Even Colin Powell has talked publicly about punishing France, as if France were not a longtime political ally that has become temporarily hostile but a recalcitrant teenager.
But then it's also pretty condescending to forgive the Russians because they are unserious, or to refuse to speak to the German chancellor because he's odious. And it's a strange way to go about winning support in countries that are run by democratically elected leaders. What seems to be missing, in both the Bush administration's prewar and postwar European diplomacy, is any sense that we are speaking not to a handful of unpleasant individuals but to entire countries. There is a carelessness about the language being tossed around Washington, as if no one here cares anymore about who might be listening. Besides, what does "punish France" actually mean? Punish all of the French -- even the pro-American French? In diplomacy, how you say something is as important as what you do, if not more so.
Instead of dreaming up ways to be rude to Gerhard and offensive to Jacques, the president should concentrate on the people who are going to elect their successors. He should talk over the heads of the European chattering classes who have opposed him and speak directly to the television audiences that are listening around the world every time he so much as clears his throat.
Now, if I were president, I would do things just as Ms. Applebaum suggests -- ignore the European leaders and try to persuade their people. Why? Because I am an intellectual sort, and attempts at persuasion come naturally to me. We all like to play to our strengths. Even so, I would expect to persuade perhaps a few thousand out of Europe's 400 million. The practical effect would have been no better, and perhaps worse, than the Bush administration is achieving by playing to its strengths.
What is Bush's approach accomplishing? It is making Chirac and Schroeder look irrelevant, and showing that we think of them as, in Applebaum's phrase, teenagers. As their citizens realize that Chirac and Schroeder are inconsequential and held in contempt by foreign leaders, they increasingly tend to view their own leaders with contempt. And this creates great pressure on Chirac and Schroeder to change their behavior. For more than anything else, they are playing for appearances: they want, very much, to be important and relevant, and respected by their own citizens. To obtain those appearances, they will trade substance (such as an end to UN sanctions and release of Iraqi oil money).
Why does Russia get forgiven? Because its government is much less responsive to public opinion. There we must deal directly with Putin; grudges would only get in our way. That Russia's leadership is hostile to us doesn't change this calculus. The forgiveness is in public, but in private we remember.
Had we addressed French and German citizens in an effort to persuade, we would have been asserting by our actions that the opinions of the French and German governments was important. We would have lost the lever that scorn gives over the actions of Chirac and Schroeder. And we would have gained nothing, because the European public was not ready to listen.
The truth is that persuasion is not leadership. Minds change rarely and with great difficulty. Good leaders don't change minds, they enlist pre-disposed minds in a cause, and work around opposed minds. George Bush is a leader.