Airstrip One

Positive Force This

I know we seem to be fixated with Condeleza Rice these days (well she is better looking than Colin Powell) but she says some revealing things. For instance that the United States is still gung ho for the extinction of Britain:

As Europe unifies further and has a common foreign policy - I
understand what is going to happen with the constitution and that there will
be unification, in effect, under a foreign minister - I think that also will
be a very good development.

This should not be a surprise. America has seen a United Europe as a very good thing. Europe is after all a potential ally whenever a threat from the east emerges, be it Russian, Islamic or Chinese. And a British presence is crucial for keeping the thing tied into the Atlantic. This was the view of the Americans as early as the late forties when they encouraged the Iron and Steel Community, and the British policy elite has gradually fallen into this since we surrendered an independent foreign policy after Suez. Tony Blair is not, to the Yanks at least, a character tortured by his desire to sell his country to the Yanks and the Europeans - this is perfectly consistent.

Of course just because something is in America's interests, that does not mean that it is in ours. This is not something that most of the British right has yet realised.