Airstrip One

Suez and the Iraqi Crisis

William Keegan in The Observer argues that the Iraqi War has been the gravest foreign policy crisis for any government since Suez in terms of the potential damage that it could inflict. He makes the persuasive argument that foreign policy has now been decoupled from economic decline, immunising Blair from the pressures of the markets or any other power who held the whiphand over sterling. The lack of such pressures are a telling testament that Britain's decline has halted.

When one looks at Suez after almost half a century, it is becoming clearer that the debacle was a major foreign policy disaster for the United States, as well as for Britain. At one stroke, they emasculated their strongest ally in Europe, withered the confidence of the Foreign Office and sowed the seeds of distrust that led to Britain entering the European Economic Community in 1973. Without exiting the European Union, it is unclear how Britain will maintain its alliance or intelligence links with the United States as defence and foreign policy are integrated into the emergent continental state.

Cause and effect, old chaps, cause and effect.

(22.36, 8th February 2004)