December 5, 2005
FOR THE ELITES, BY THE ELITES
Regime change is needed in Europe (The Telegraph, December 5th, 2005)
As the American Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, arrives in Europe, it is instructive to look at the areas where her country's interests clash with those of the EU. They fall into six broad categories: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Israel, China and what one might loosely call "supra-nationalism" - that is, the power of the UN, the Kyoto process, the International Criminal Court and so on. These disputes are not unrelated; they are linked by a common ideological thread. In each case, the United States is pro-democracy, the EU pro-stability.[...]This difference in approach was, as it were, encoded in the DNA of the two organisations. The US was born out of a revolt against autocratic government. In consequence, it sympathises naturally with democracy, decentralisation and national self-determination. Its founding creed was adumbrated by Thomas Jefferson, who believed that power should be exercised by the individual in preference to the state, and by lower in preference to higher tiers of government.
The EU, by contrast, was a reaction against the pre-war plebiscitary democracy which, in its patriarchs' eyes, had led to fascism and conflict. Its governing principle is the precise opposite of Jeffersonianism: the doctrine of "ever-closer union". Its leaders believe to this day that states are better run by experts than by populist politicians and, just as they apply that belief to their own institutions, so they extend it to other continents. Indeed, the distinction between the two unions can be inferred from the opening words of their founding charters: the American Constitution begins "We, the people"; the Treaty of Rome begins "His Majesty the King of the Belgians".
There is only one part of the world where America does not extend its principles: the EU itself. Everywhere else, this administration has moved beyond the Cold War tendency to do business with local strongmen ("he may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he's our son-of-a-bitch"). George Bush has grasped that undemocratic states tend to export their problems, which makes them objectively inimical to Western interests, however notionally pro-Western their leaders.
But, when it comes to Europe, he is happy to indulge the elites even as they take more power from their peoples. [...]
But Miss Rice should be careful. Forty years of solid Washington support for the EU have not led to any reciprocal pro-Americanism in Brussels. As she has found before, and will find again, Europeans often exhibit a psychotic desire to bite the hand that freed them.
Why would the writer call them psychotic when he has just argued so convincingly that they have little use for democracy?
Posted by Peter Burnet at December 5, 2005 6:30 AMBecause the writer, quite charitably, is giving the Europeans the benefit of the doubt.
(As my mama always told me, to little avail, if you have nothing good to say, don't say it.)
The alternative---too, too horrible to contemplate---is to call them what they really are. And than have to face up to that sordid fact.
Posted by: Barry Meislin at December 5, 2005 7:10 AMAnyone who becomes Secretary of State immediately has to confront a sobering reality: how much worse Europe's elites would be likely to start behaving if they weren't being "indulged" in this way. Already they are only one step away from being the central manufacturing facility for world terrorism (even in, yes, 'Londonistan'), and that's when they imagine they are being reasonably cooperative.
Appeals to popular opinion in Europe would have zero effect or worse - the European elites have that avenue covered every way from Sunday. Just like the Chinese regime, they have their hand constantly on the 'Anti-American' volume knob, ready to kick it up to a level we really won't like.
Posted by: ZF at December 5, 2005 9:28 AM"They fall into six broad categories: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Israel, China and what one might loosely call "supra-nationalism"..."
So we disagree on policy issues relating to the Americas, the Middle East, Asia, and the future of the entire world. But other than that, our interests dovetail nicely...
I have full confidence Condi will let them know that we don't care a flying fig about what they think, in a diplomatic way, of course.
After the EU collapses, will be time enough to worry about what to do with the pieces.
Posted by: erp at December 5, 2005 12:17 PM"the United States is pro-democracy, the EU pro-stability..."
Nicely captures the fact that we're radical and Old Europe is conservative. Much of the bizzare agitprop that has come from the Left lately is due to their desire to suppress this inconvenient fact.