Regards, Ivan
Posted on 03/15/2003 4:17:34 PM PST by MadIvan
A headline in Friday's Washington Post captures perfectly the Rumsfeld Effect: "Anti-US Sentiment Abates in South Korea; Change Follows Rumsfeld Suggestion of Troop Cut". Change Follows Rumsfeld Suggestion: there's a slogan for the age, and it's fast becoming the First Law of Post-9/11 Geopolitics.
"The anti-American demonstrations here have suddenly gone poof," began the Post reporter in Seoul. "The official line from the South Korean government is: Yankees stay here." What brought about this remarkable transformation? Why, a passing remark, an extemporaneous musing; in other words, "a suggestion from Defense Secretary Donald H Rumsfeld that US troops may be cut and repositioned."
Other politicians sweat for weeks over a major 90-minute policy speech, hire the best writers, craft memorable phrases, and nobody notices. If you want to "re-shape the debate", as the cliche has it, all you need is a casual aside from Rummy. The concept of "old Europe" barely existed until Rumsfeld used it as a throwaway line a month and a half ago. Within a week, it became the dominant regional paradigm. Belgium - Old Europe. Bulgaria - New Europe. The entire map of the continent suddenly fell into place for the first time since the Cold War. Even those who indignantly huffed about this unacceptable insult seemed unable to resist confirming the truth of it.
Alas, last week Rummy's ruminations on rummy nations finally alighted, as they were bound to eventually, on the United Kingdom. The Defence Secretary made some mild remarks to the effect that, if Britain were not able to participate in the war on Iraq, it wouldn't make much difference. Even some of his cheerleaders on the right thought this was a tad inconsiderate to Tony Blair. And at the BBC they fell upon it deliriously as evidence that heartless old Rumsfeld would be happy to have Bush's poodle put down and served up at the South Korean farewell banquet with nary a thought: Secretary Rumsfeld, said the BBC's correspondent, Nick Assinder, had managed to "blow a series of holes in the Prime Minister's armour", he had "pulled the rug out" from beneath Blair's armoured feet, etc, etc.
But the thing is: he's not wrong, is he? Britain is helpful, but not necessary. And it would not be unreasonable if Rumsfeld, with a couple of hundred thousand guys kicking their heels in the sand for six months, felt that America was being perhaps too deferential to the Prime Minister's domestic difficulties. After all, at what point does Britain's helpfulness cease to be helpful? There are no hard and fast rules, but when Baroness Amos is chasing Dominique de Villepin around West Africa because Guinea's presidential witchdoctor is advising against war it is hard not to feel that, even by diplomatic standards, the whole thing has become unmoored from reality.
That is Rumsfeld's function - to take the polite fictions and drag them back to the real world. During the Afghan campaign, CNN's Larry King asked him, "Is it very important that the coalition hold?" The correct answer - the Powell-Blair-Gore-Annan answer - is, of course, "Yes". But Rummy decided to give the truthful answer: "No". He went on to explain why: "The worst thing you can do is allow a coalition to determine what your mission is." Such a man cannot be happy at the sight of the Guinean tail wagging the French rectum of the British hindquarters of the American dog.
Not everybody likes the Rumsfeldian approach. Germany was furious when Rummy lumped them with Libya and Cuba. Islamabad complained that he was "extremely callous" in offering Pakistanis serving with the Taliban two choices: "surrender or death". And even the Spanish Prime Minister felt obliged to suggest it might be better if Europe heard less of Rumsfeld and more of Colin Powell.
But it's hard to see why. Europe saw a lot of Colin Powell when he was negotiating Resolution 1441 with Mr de Villepin, and a fat lot of good it did Washington. The present anti-Americanism in Europe doesn't distinguish between Mister Moderate and Rummy - they're all crazed fundamentalist blood-for-oil warhawks. So you might as well give 'em the real thing and have a laugh, rather than sending Colin off to drone bromides about "my good friend Dominique" as the duplicitous Frog is stitching him up one more time.
For those who think world affairs can use a bracing shot of candour, Rumsfeld is the star of this war. A year ago, National Review put him on the cover in an illustration mimicking the famous poster of the last big wartime pin-up, Betty Grable. Women said he was their favourite sex symbol of the new war - notwithstanding his age (70), his suits (off the peg), his rimless specs, or his unavailability (he's been married to his high-school sweetheart for almost five decades).
In the weeks after September 11, Rummy's wry warmonger routine was perfectly in tune with the national mood: at a time when others found it difficult to find the right pitch, he made himself an emblem of American resolve. At one Pentagon briefing, some showboating reporter noted that human rights groups had objected to the dropping of cluster bombs and demanded to know why the US was using them. "They're being used on frontline al-Qa'eda and Taliban troops to try to kill them," replied Rumsfeld. It was a small indicator of a large cultural shift when NBC's Saturday Night Live introduced a weekly parody of his press conferences, mercilessly mocking not the politician but the dopey journalists.
When I last wrote about Rummy in this space, it was a few days after September 11 and I mentioned two salient facts: 1. He was the only Cabinet Secretary whose offices were attacked, who lost members of his staff, and who helped pull the injured from the rubble; and 2. Before that date, he was widely seen as an anachronism - not just a Bush Sr retread like Cheney, but a Nixon-Ford throwback. The New York Times' elderly schoolgirl columnist Maureen Dowd mocked him as "Rip Van Rummy".
In the last 18 months, she's become Rip Van Dowdy, and he's more relevant than ever. The comparison with Powell is instructive. Everyone understands that the State Department is full of striped-pants appeasers who think the thing to do is roll over for the House of Saud and justify it as realpolitik. But the Defence Department isn't ideal either - Rummy inherited a bunch of Clintonian generals locked into an outmoded Cold War structure. The difference is that, unlike General Powell, Rumsfeld's fixing the problem - and, as the Washington Post would say, change is following.
When Colin Powell was traipsing round the Middle East on his fool's mission last summer, Secretary Rumsfeld (who served as Reagan's envoy to the region) was asked about the "occupied territories" and made you wish he had been sent over to Yasser's boudoir: "My feeling about the so-called occupied territories," he replied, "is that there was a war, Israel urged neighbouring countries not to get involved in it once it started, they all jumped in, and they lost a lot of real estate to Israel because Israel prevailed in that conflict."
"So-called occupied territories": there's one for Chris Patten, the EU's leading Yasserite. The Arabs would benefit from a little more straight talk: they're very bad at confronting the consequences of their recklessness. And that's one mistake Rumsfeld's never made, either at the Pentagon or in his pharmaceuticals business - in both of which, as he points out, if you get it wrong, "people will die". Right now, on Old Europe, South Korea and much else, Rummy's getting it right. Mrs Thatcher used to say, a propos Viscount Whitelaw, "Every Prime Minister needs a Willie". Every President needs a Rummy. We have had a six-month Powell interlude. The Rumsfeld phase is about to resume.
Regards, Ivan
"When all else fails......"
Well for one thing, I haven't been invited. ;)
Regards, Ivan
Rumsfield: "The Pentagon isn't releasing any information to the press about this operation? Well, that sounds like great news to me!"
Worth the read if only for that line.
---------------
Ring, Ring
Allo? Tony here.
Hi Tony - Batavia here!
Bat! How are ya, mate? (a little Aussie multi-culti stuff)
Great, Tony....say, do you have room for Ivan on tomorrow's flight?
We'll make room...he's a Freeper...it's a lock!
FOFL That's gotta sting.
So9
Please ping appropriately.
Regards, Ivan
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