Posted on 11/19/2003 9:56:13 AM PST by knighthawk
LONDON - Punch "Blair," "Bush" and "poodle" into your search engine, and you will retrieve more stories than you can count, let alone read. To large stretches of the British public, it is simply axiomatic: The Bush-Blair relationship is one in which President Bush issues commands, while the Prime Minister says "yap, yap."
In fact, throughout the war on terror, Mr. Bush has overridden the advice of some of his highest officials -- and restrained his own instincts -- in order to follow the advice and wishes of the British government.
At Britain's urging, Mr. Bush returned to the United Nations twice to seek UN resolutions authorizing the coalition to use force against Iraq.
Or again: Mr. Bush came to office convinced that Bill Clinton had over-invested American prestige in the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. He was hardly uninterested in the process, nor was he opposed to Palestinian statehood: to the contrary, he is the first U.S. president ever to have unconditionally endorsed statehood. But he did fear that by seeming to crave a deal more than the parties themselves did, the United States reduced its leverage -- and after 9/11, he came to believe that Israeli-Palestinian peace could be reached only after Islamic radicalism had been defeated, not before. The British government -- and especially the British Foreign Office -- felt differently. And so, again largely to please Britain, Mr. Bush committed himself to the Road Map for Peace in a March 2003 Rose Garden address.
One more: Mr. Bush has audaciously argued that the ultimate solution to the problem of terrorism would come from the progress of democracy in the Islamic world, beginning with Iraq. But almost as soon as Saddam had been overthrown, the U.S. State Department and the British Foreign Office began arguing for a slow transition to Iraqi self-rule. They opposed the creation of an Iraqi provisional government, opposed the transfer of authority to Iraqi ministries, and opposed early elections even to local government. Their timetable called for the writing of a constitution to precede elections -- and for the United States and Britain to run the country for the 18 or 24 or 36 months until elections could take place. That policy prevailed until only last week, when Mr. Bush reversed course and ordered a rapid transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis.
By any measure, this is a very considerable list of British diplomatic achievements. So why do British people diminish them?
There are three main reasons for this self-disparagement.
First, in almost every case, the British government has hesitated to tell the British people what its real objectives were -- making it difficult for the British people to appreciate how successful its government had been. Nobody from the Foreign Office has ever publicly acknowledged that the Office believes Bush's vision of a democratic Iraq to be dangerous nonsense that could destabilize cherished but non-democratic British clients throughout the region. Instead, British parliamentarians and journalists take to the airwaves to complain about America's human rights record in the region. When the declared policy contradicts the actual policy, you create a paradox: the more influential you are, the less influential you look.
The second reason for the misperception of Britain's place in the alliance is that the bad consequences of the policies advocated by the Blair government have convinced many British leaders that the less said about them, the better. There was only ever one possible provisional government for Iraq: the Iraqi National Congress led by Ahmed Chalabi. Important sections of the U.S. government -- the State Department, the CIA -- disliked Dr. Chalabi for petty bureaucratic reasons of their own. The yearning of the British government for an Iraqi Mubarak or Musharraf -- a Western-oriented strongman backed by military power -- lent extra force to the anti-INC faction. But because there was no plausible alternative to the INC, British advice helped bring the coalition to a point where six months after the fall of the dictator, Iraqis perceive themselves to be ruled without their consent by an English-speaking proconsul.
The third reason for the misperception of British influence is not political, but psychological. While some nations suffer from folie de grandeur, the British seem uniquely disposed to bad-mouth themselves and their nation. If the war on terror has proved anything, it is this: There are only two countries in the world able and willing to project substantial military force around the world. The United States is one. The United Kingdom is the other.
British power is not merely a function of the men and money that British governments have chosen to invest in their Armed Forces. Much more, British power is a tribute to Britain's democratic cohesion at a time of increasing ethnic strife, to Britain's proud national identity in a world governed by post-colonial guilt, and to Britain's sense of moral responsibility in a Europe too often willing to sacrifice every principle to avoid risk and trouble.
I am not British, and so I cannot easily understand why the British feel more ashamed of their national success than most other countries do of their national failures. But what has to be understood by everyone, British and American, is that along with Australia, Britain has been, is now, and will continue to be America's indispensable ally not because its prime minister is weak, but because the British nation remains so strong. Together, the Anglo-Australian-American alliance can guarantee not only the peace of the world, but also liberty and human rights. No three other nations -- no 163 other nations -- can say the same. This state visit is honouring no one individual, not even an American president. It is instead intended to reaffirm for the 21st century the grand alliance that saved democracy in the 20th. And there may be an apt moment during this visit for this wartime President to adapt some words from another leader of the alliance: "Some poodle."
David Frum was a special assistant to President Bush, and is the author of The Right Man -- The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush.
An awful lot of folks seem to keep forgetting this.
I found this article tremendously revealing.
If Frum is correct
paragraphs 8 and 9 throw an entirely different light on
"the real reason"
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