What's US policy on Europe? No giggling
By Mark Steyn
(Filed: 20/02/2005)
Two years ago, I wrote that America and Europe were now engaged in a
new Cold War. And just like the old Cold War it's not only about
Jacques Chirac issuing Krushchevian boasts to Washington that "we will
bury you"; it's also got room for the occasional détente phase. So
this month in Washington is Be Nice To Europe month. For weeks now,
the Administration's hardline Zionist Christian fundamentalist neocon
unilateralist warmongers have been coming into the office to find
smiley-face reminders from the White House pinned to the desk: "Have
you hugged a European foreign minister today?" And they've been doing
their best to comply: Condi Rice flew in to the heart of "old Europe"
and launched a big charm offensive. Then Donald Rumsfeld flew in and
launched what felt like a faintly parodic charm offensive, insisting
that the disparaging remarks about "old Europe" had been made by the
"old Rumsfeld".
And now the President himself is on his way, staying up all night on
Air Force One trying to master the official State Department briefing
paper on the European Rapid Reaction Force, the European Constitution,
the European negotiations with Iran, etc. ("When these subjects come
up, US policy is to nod politely and try not to giggle. If you feel a
massive hoot of derision coming on, duck out to the men's room, but
without blaming it on the escargots.") The French Foreign Minister
took to calling the US Secretary of State "chère Condi" every 30
seconds. It's doubtful if the French President will go that far, but,
if he does, the White House line is that Mr Bush is happy to play
Renee Zellweger to Chirac's Tom Cruise ("You had me at bonjour").
What does all this mean? Nothing. In victory, magnanimity – and right
now Bush can afford to be magnanimous, even if Europe isn't yet ready
to acknowledge his victory. On Thursday, in a discussion of "the
greater Middle East", the President remarked that Syria was "out of
step". And, amazingly, he's right. Not so long ago, Syria was
perfectly in step with the Middle East – it was the archetypal squalid
stable Arab dictatorship. Two years on, Syria hasn't changed, but Iraq
has, and, to varying degrees, the momentum in Jordan, Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, the Palestinian Authority and Lebanon (where the Syrians have
overplayed their hand) is also in the Bush direction. Boy Assad finds
himself in the position of the unfortunate soldier in Irving Berlin's
First World War marching song, "They Were All Out Of Step But Jim".
The EU isn't the Arab League, though for much of the past three years
it's been hard to tell the difference. But it, too, is out of step.
The question is whether the Europeans are smart enough, like the
savvier Sunnis in Iraq, to realise it. The Washington Post's Fred
Hiatt compared the President's inaugural speech with Gerhard
Schröder's keynote address to the Munich Conference on Security Policy
last week and observed that, while both men talked about the Middle
East, terrorism and 21st-century security threats, Mr Bush used the
word "freedom" 27 times while Herr Schröder uttered it not once; he
preferred to emphasise, as if it were still March 2003 and he were
Arab League Secretary-General, "stability" – the old realpolitik
fetish the Administration has explicitly disavowed. It's not just that
the two sides aren't speaking the same language, but that the key
phrases of Mr Bush's vocabulary don't seem to exist in Chirac's or
Schröder's.
The differences between America and Europe in the 21st century are
nothing to do with insensitive swaggering Texas cowboys. Indeed,
they're nothing to do with Iraq, Iran, Kyoto, the International
Criminal Court, or any other particular issue. They're not tactical
differences, they're conceptual.
Does this matter? Not a bit. "Dear Condi," cooed Michel Barnier, the
French Foreign Minister, at their joint press conference, "how
convinced I am that the world works better when the Americans and the
Europeans cooperate."
But what exactly does this new Euro-American "cooperation" boil down
to when the airy platitudes float gently back to earth? It means that
the US expends huge amounts of diplomatic effort and, after a year or
three, the French graciously agree to train a couple of dozen Iraqi
policemen. Not in Iraq, of course – that would be too close
cooperation – but in France. So, in the détente phase of the new Cold
War, the Iraqi police recruits permitted to set foot in the Fifth
Republic are the equivalent of a 1970s ballet-company cultural
exchange.
By contrast, consider the Kingdom of Tonga; population 100,000. A few
months back it managed to deploy 45 Royal Marines to Iraq, and without
getting schmoozed by Condi or Rummy or anyone else. A proportional
deployment from France would be 27,450 troops; from Germany, 37,350
troops. Even Belgium would be chipping in 5,000. Can you conceive of
any circumstances in which France or Germany would ever "cooperate" to
that extent? The entire "Trans atlantic Split: Chirac Aghast At
Blundering Yank Moron Shock!" vs "Transatlantic Rapprochement:
Rumsfeld Gives Tongue Sarnie To Schröder – See Souvenir Pictorial"
narrative is wholly post-modern: either way, it makes no difference.
That suits Europe; the Kyoto Treaty makes no difference to global
warming, the EU negotiating troika makes no difference to Iran's
nuclear programme, the threat of an ICC subpoena makes no difference
to the Sudanese government's mass slaughter programme – and Washington
has concluded that a Europe that makes no difference suits it just
fine, too.
So the test this coming week will be whether anybody talks about
anything concrete, anything specific, or whether they just dust off
the usual blather: "Europe and America," said President Bush in
Ireland last year, "are linked by the ties of family, friendship and
common struggle and common values."
In fact, Mr Bush and many other American officials have an all too
common struggle articulating what those common values are. In Prague
in 2002, the President told fellow Nato members: "We share common
values – the common values of freedom, human rights and democracy." In
a post-Communist world, these are vague, unobjectionable generalities
to everyone except the head hackers in the Sunni Triangle. It's when
you try to flesh them out that it all gets more complicated. The
reality is that Europe's very specific troubles – economic,
demographic, political – derive from Europe, not America. And, if the
member states of the EU are determined to enshrine constitutionally
and Continent-wide the "rights" that have proved so disastrous for
them as individual nations, there's not a lot America can do about it
except stand well clear. Or as Mr Bush put it in his Telegraph
interview yesterday: "No, I'm not going to comment [laughter]" –
evidently still having trouble with the "no giggling" rule.
On the other hand, a new CIA analysis has predicted the collapse of
the EU within 15 years. It's a bit unsettling to find that the guys at
Langley who've got absolutely everything wrong for decades suddenly
agree with me. If this pans out as most CIA analysis does, Europe is
on course to be the hyperpower of the 21st century.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"I have a simple four-word answer: Save Social Security first."
-- Bill Clinton (January 27, 1998 State of the Union Address)
"Why would I listen to losers?" -- Arnold Schwarzenegger
"Long term commitment in relationships is only necessary because it takes
so damn long to raise children. Marriage may well be some kind of trick
to keep the males around beyond sexual satiation." -- Captain Compassion
"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant
Joseph R. Darancette
res0mp8t@NOSPAMverizon.net
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