Mark Steyn: It's not really about Saddam

National Post (Canada) ^ | 02/14/03 | Mark Steyn

[George W. Bush]

I was looking for your comments on Steyn's perspective on the French threat to the Blair government. No doubt they would like to unseat Tony if possible as the leading opponent of European federalism French-style but the risk of ending up with Tories in power instead of Blair seems to make it too uncertain an enterprise for the French.

Still, one has to credit Steyn's instinct that a lot of fish are being fried: NATO, EU dominance, oil control, weapons sales to oil states and others. It really has to be about more than just Blair being a threat to the plans of Brussels and France to dominate the United Europe. Steyn seems to sum all this up in the person of Blair. I would agree that, as much as it is about any single person, that would be Blair. But there's a lot more at stake here.

[George W. Bush]

I don't think we are bluffing; we would never have deployed the 101st Airborne division to the Gulf for a bluff.

The deployment of the 101 probably means action within two weeks of its arrival. Saddam should be getting the message that it's flee or die.

[MadIvan]

Blair is getting a first class education about why Britain has never gotten on with the French and the Germans, and why the EU is a gigantic swindle. They hope to keep us down. They want to strangle us with red tape, bureaucracy, taxation. They want to subsume our foreign policy. They want to chain our ability to stand with America, and so on.

I hope Blair is learning that he, and the anti-Axis of Weasels part of the EU, plus Eastern Europe are going to have to work together to freeze out France, Germany, and Belgium.

Regards, Ivan

[George W. Bush]

I think that Blair may have entered office as a liberal idealist, buying into a lot of the rose-colored Eurobilge that was going around. But it may be that his experience in office over the years has brought a certain clarity about the nature of the real world and the intended dominance of United Europe by France/Germany/Belgium. And no other independence will be allowed by the Axis of Weasels.

So, Tony Blair may end up being the best Labor leader in many decades, if not ever. The longer he is in office, the more I actually like him, well, leaving aside gungrabbing and liberal social policy. As an ally and a power in the world, he's gotten much better over time, admirable even. I think that his prior association with Clinton was a liability since Slick Willy was a bad influence on everyone who came under his influence.

Hey, I loved the British crack at the frogs in the Security Council today. "I come from a very old country as well...one created in 1066 by France." Classic British understated deadpan humor. Deflated that pompous frog with a light touch. That was enjoyed very much here in America.

American media circulating first reports now that both British and American special forces units are operating pretty openly inside Iraq already, perhaps in coordination with domestic Iraqi resistance. Any word of that in Britain media?

[Libertina]

For the rest of us, what's at stake since September 11th, since that Durban conference even, is the survival of "the West"
Survival of the West BUMP

[americanbychoice]

Just read the proposed EU constitution. Written by FROG Giscard D'Estaign. It will become clear to you. No States rights, everything controlled by Brussels like taxes, schools, military, health care, etc. Germany and France as the largest countries in the EU would control all their slaves. Lebensraum without firing a shot?

[alfa6]

Thanks and a bump for later

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[ggekko]

"Just read the proposed EU constitution...."

I haven't read it but I am familiar with the rough contours. IMHO, We have been too disengaged from this process as the France and Germany try to re-create the Holy Roman Empire.

After the Iraq war, I believe we should help the Brits and "New Europe" stir this Constitution away from a strong Federal model. Failing that we should be prepared to offer "Atlantic NAFTA" status to the Brits and "New Europe" and maybe Turkey. We must not allow our trade interests to be controlled from Brussells.

[patricia]

Thanks and BTTT!

[Stefan Stackhouse]

We have finally had to face up to the reality: if the time ever does come where we REALLY need help, neither France, nor Germany, nor Belgium will be there for us. They will wimp out, if not stab us in the back.

It has probably been this ways for years, but we have politely maintained the fiction that they were "allies" -- partially due to shear inertia, and partially because the reality was too painful to face.

Well, now we have come to face it, and it is painful, but it is time to be honest and realistic and deal with it.

The brutal fact of the matter is that it is DANGEROUS to have an "ally" that is unreliable. A nation makes plans and decisions on the assumption that its allies can be relied upon to keep their commitments. When an "ally" reneges on a treaty obligation, that can have drastic and dangerous consequences. A nation -- any nation -- is much better off with no allies at all than with "allies" that cannot be relied upon.

Perhaps we should count ourselves fortunate that we found out now, before very much was really on the line. But whatever the case, we have found out, and we must now adjust to the reality that France, Germany, and Belgium cannot be relied upon as allies any longer.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

Have you ever read an interesting old book by a fellow named Leopld Kohr entitled The Breakdown of Nations? One of Kohr's theses is that the only way that a transnational European federation is possible is if the big nations (like France and Germany) are broken down into their constituent provinces. Federations are successful only when all the constituent units are pretty much equal in size, population, and influence. Both the US and Switzerland are examples of successful federations, because the Swiss cantons and the US states are sufficiently small and numerous relative to the whole. On the other hand, when the US states combined into just two opposing blocs, civil war resulted. Similarly, if Switzerland just consisted of three states, one for each language (French, German, Italian), then it would have never succeeded, because the French and Italian parts would not accept being dominated by the more numerous German Swiss.

Europe's problem is that Germany and France are too big relative to most of the other European nations. This was less of a problem when there were two Germanys. It is interesting that it was just during this time that the EEC was able to form and create the nucleus for today's EU.

As the largest states in the EU, it is only natural that France and Germany would want to dominate. Being outnumbered because so many other states have been brought in, they evidently now think that the only way they can assert the influence they covet is to combine, and to substitute their own influence for that of the US. It is just as natural that the smaller states on the periphery would want to resist Franco-German influence, and to seek to preserve US influence in Europe as a counterweight. These things would be true pretty much regardless of the actual personalties in positions of power.

[Balata]

bttt

[GOPJ]

Do thugs come up with the same solutions because they're all alike or because citizens respond to them in the same ways??

Once in power, the party behaved, in some respects, as Leninist parties do everywhere. It built a parallel party structure on top of the normal government bureaucracy to enforce loyalty and conformity. It established its own army, in addition to the regular Iraqi army, and its own intelligence service, which at first was given the otherworldly name the Apparatus of Yearnings. Ambitious young people were compelled to join the party if they hoped to rise, or even study abroad. Leaving the Baath party to join another political group remains in Iraq a crime punishable by death.

[NorthernRight]

This is an extremely perceptive and astute analysis.. However... what's interesting is that at about the same time as mark Steyn conceived these thoughts, another Canadian pundit came up with a very similar analysis also.

Canadian commentator Howard Galganov published some very similar views in his piece The Iraqi Affair - Maybe It's More Than Meets The Eye.

Worth a look.

[maica]

Good Recommendation.
I would add for the purposes of illustration, that Canada is ruled by Ontario/Quebec, and the rest of the provinces are just along for the ride, without any counterbalancing power. Very similar to the unsatisfactory position that all of the EU countries find themselves in regarding control by France/Germany.