Airstrip One

Zimwatch: Three Kings watch over negotiations - 5th May 2003, 9.07

Mbeki of South Africa, Obasanjo of Nigeria and Muluzi of Malawi will visit Zimbabwe for one day and talk to both the Mugabe dictatorship and the opposition. April was a quiet month after the general strikes of March and one could speculate that this show of resistance may have forced certain elements in ZANU to consider post-Mugabe Zimbabwe and open behind the scene negotiations.

The Future of Europe: A Neo-Conservative Viewpoint - 4th May 2003, 21.14

Victor Davis Hanson, in the National Review, provides the systematic and moralistic position of the neo-conservatives on post-Iraqi Europe. Through the very assumptions on which the article rests, one can see how a moral stance renders an analysis semi-detached from current diplomatic developments. Hanson argues that the Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis requires expulsion from the existing institutions of the Atlantic Alliance in order that they may fully appreciate their current military and political weakness. Now, such an action would actually cement an axis that exists more in the minds of American commentators who have developed a taste for dividing the world into those who are for the US and those who are against the US. Perhaps simplifying international relations is the first step towards proper management in a unipolar world.

Hanson's problem is that he does not distinguish between "Europeans" and the French, the Belgians and the Germans. For the first four paragraphs of his column, the two appear to be interchangeable so that every European member of NATO is tarred with the same brush. The current stereotyping of Europeans stereotyping Americans flows from the Kaganite rhetoric popular amongst the foreign policy entrepreneurs of Washington but, in the longer term, such generalities will obtain a life of their own. Individual countries are targeted but opprobrium is directed at the Continent, simplifying a discourse that needs to retain an understanding of the sharp differences between members of the European Union.

In return, many European elites ridicule American values, naïveté, and insularity — even as their countries have raked in billions of American dollars in trade surpluses and tourism from mostly oblivious, aw-shucks Americans. We self-absorbed, parochial yokels laughed and paid little attention to the fact that some in Europe had forsaken Christianity for this weird, emerging boutique religion of anti-Americanism.

Who could take their ankle-biting seriously? Who, after all, would give up all that they had gotten so cheaply — that dream of all spoiled teenagers: to snap at and ridicule their patient and paying parents, even as they call on them in extremis for help whenever the car stalls or the rent is short?

Such labelling will anger US allies in Europe who read this column. There is a 'take your friends for granted' contempt that does not appear to take into account any number of deaths British soldiers suffered in Iraq. As Britain is lumped in with the 'Europeans', one can take exception to Hanson's character assassination of this country on the grounds of misrepresentation and ingratitude.

That aside, what is most interesting about the neo-conservatives who adopt a Kaganite perspective, is that a 'special relationship' falls off their radar. The UK is a part of Europe and is perceived as useful rather than as a trusted ally. Hanson reorders the foreign policy of the United States from this moral foundation and leaves out the two concepts most appropriate to diplomacy: negotiation and compromise.

To bring back moral clarity and maturity, we must begin to establish a more reciprocal relationship with the willing.

Hanson provides a wish-list for a world that America can guide with its muscular morality: Removing the French veto in the United Nations; removing all non-democratic states from the United Nations (though he doesn't mention how China would react to this); downgrading NATO and removing all US bases to more supportive and compliant countries; updating the United Nations to recognise current powers like Brazil, India etc.; and placing the analysis and implementation of US foreign policy from the State Department to ambassadorships with "resolute, principled men and women there [in Europe] to present our new views forcefully". As the above quotation demonstrates, Hanson argues for a more reciprocal relationship with friendly powers but his agenda shows little flexibility in accommodating the needs of allies.

It is unclear if a formal neo-conservative policy agenda in Washington, filtered through a Kaganite lens, would be of benefit to the United Kingdom. The harsher language that Hanson provides, if ever adopted by the United States, would strip away the 'rose-tinted' mystique that politicians in the United Kingdom use to obscure the 'special relationship'.

However, Hanson undermines his own credibility by confusing Gibraltar with a quagmire (his term for security concerns over here) and calls on Europe in one breath to sort its problems out and for the US to maintain cordial relationships with Britain and Spain in the next. It is an issue between two staunch US allies unless he views Gibraltar as a staging post for terrorists.

Cyprus, tension in the Aegean, Turkish EU membership, Gibraltar, North African disputes — all that and more must remain exclusively Europe’s quagmires. We wish them well, but cannot under the present circumstance hope to send a single soldier to resolve a single one of their own internal crises — unless it involves the safety of our own bilateral allies: perhaps a Britain, Poland, Italy, Holland, Spain, or others in such future coalitions of the willing.

The column may be marred by this factual lapse which does call Hanson's basic knowledge of European affairs into question. However, the more interesting question is why those conservatives who support the concept of the Anglosphere have not identified the stark differences between themselves and the neo-conservatives. A strong strand of neo-conservatism includes an 'America first' ideology that does not recognise the importance of cultural affinities as foreign policy is subjugated to a strong moral position that the United States embodies all that is best in the world. The universalised values that they promote are wedded to a hegemonic approach and do not require the recognition of cultural or ethnic ties; indeed, these would undermine and adulterate the purity of their foreign policy, since they argue that the US brand of constitutional republicanism can be planted, with local variation, in any soil, no matter how forbidding. Anglospherists need to examine their relationship with neo-conservatism. The moral foundations of the latter preclude the cultural reciprocation that underlies the 'special relationships' of the 'Anglosphere'.

Will Tony Blair Resign
If He Turns Out to Have Lied About
The "Weapons of Mass Destruction"?
by Sean Gabb
http://www.seangabb.co.uk

Last Wednesday in Parliament, Tony Blair was asked a question by Sir Peter Tapsell, the Conservative Member for Louth and Horncastle. Here is the question:
If it eventually transpires at the time of our invasion, that Iraq no longer produced weapons of mass destruction capable of threatening this country, and the Prime Minister led this country into war under a false assumption, will he resign?

Even today, the rules of the House of Commons are strict about the use of language, and it is not permitted to accuse another Member of lying. Therefore the odd use of the words “a false assumption”. But the meaning of the question was plain. Just as plainly, it was not possible for the Prime Minister to give a straight answer. Those of us who are not Members of Parliament are free from the constraints under which Sir Peter asked his question. It is now undeniable that the Prime Minister lied us into the war with Iraq.

It will not do, weeks after the end of the war, for the Allies to find a few barrels of some forbidden chemical. We were assured by Mr Blair not that the Iraqis had forbidden chemicals, or even that they were a danger to each other and their immediate neighbours, but that they had chemical and biological weapons capable of being used against this country. We were further assured that these could be deployed against us within 45 minutes. Nor will it do even if such weapons are eventually “found”. That the United Nations weapons inspectors have been forbidden access to the country to continue their search for such weapons - that the man most likely to have been complicit in any hiding of them has stated in a news conference before giving himself up to the Americans that there were none - must bring any future discovery into obvious doubt. There is also the fact that the Iraqis never once used any unconventional weapons in defending their country against invasion. They had good warning that their country was about to be invaded. They had good reason to use whatever weapons they had. Failing this, they had good reason to call on the connections we were assured to exist with some international terrorist conspiracy. They did nothing. Their armies were the ill-equipped and ill-disciplined conscripts usual to the third world dump that Iraq turned out to be.

In this war, 2,500 Iraqi civilians and 10,000 Iraqi combatants are believed to have been killed. Certainly, 105 American and 32 British soldiers were killed, together with at least ten journalists. 17 million Iraqis now rely on charity for their food; and another 40,000 in Baghdad for water. The American Government so far has spent $55 billion on fighting the war, and the British Government £3 billion. The estimated cost - to the American taxpayers largely - of rebuilding Iraq is another $100 billion. No weapons of mass destruction - certainly none capable of use against either America or Britain - have been found. No evidence has turned up of any but the slightest communication with al Qa’eda.

It seems that the American Government always intended to invade Iraq, and was not interested in the truth of whatever claims were made to justify the invasion. That is a matter for the American people to take up with their government, not for us. But it is our concern, here in this country, that our own government lied to us.

It is not possible to say that Mr Blair was deceived by the security chiefs. Even if he had been, he appointed or retained them, and he is formally responsible for their actions. But they did not deceive him. Robin Cook, who resigned from the Government over the invasion, was a senior Minister and a former Foreign Secretary. He had no information about any Iraqi threat. Mr Blair stood up in the House of Commons and lied to Parliament and to all of us. He took us into a war that was not in our interest, that killed thousands - and might easily have killed hundreds of thousands - that has cost us billions, and that may not for many years have revealed its full cost to us. He lied us into war and thousands into early graves.

I know that some of my readers will shrug and ask “so what?” They had their own reasons for supporting the war, and regarded the talk of an immediate threat as a useful fiction. But, while I do not believe any of these reasons was enough to justify the war, I will not argue with them. All I will do is suggest that, while Mr Blair may have been useful to get us into the war, he has now served his purpose. Whatever was meant to be achieved has been achieved, or will now be achieved without his continuation in office. At the same time, every day that he continues in office is a continuation of the attack on our cultural identity as a people and therefore on our personal freedoms. We cannot even be sure that he will allow his policy on Europe to stay in ruins.

The war is over, and it is time to return to domestic issues. Mr Blair remains the most dangerous man in the country, and so it is necessary to do what we can to help remove him from office. The local authority elections went badly for him yesterday, and would certainly have gone still worse were the Conservatives not mostly in political hibernation. Even so, the more intelligent Conservatives are asking about the weapons of mass destruction. The electors are willing to hear the questions. Whatever differences I and the majority of my British readers may have had over the war, the time has come, I suggest, for all of us to join in the questions. Perhaps not even a liar so inveterate as Mr Blair may be able to answer them.

So what's the problem

Crispin Blunt has resigned the Tory front bench and thrown down the gauntlet for a leadership challenge. Tory Central Office came up with this strange quote:

Crispin Blunt's resignation is no surprise. He has been at odds with the party leadership for some time, notably over foreign policy.

Foreign Policy? Does that mean Europe or America. The Blunt statement (sorry) says nothing on foreign policy, or indeed anything political.

Supposedly this is the prelude to a stalking horse challenge by Tim Yeo, who although more pro-Europe than IDS is not a raving Europhile. He is sceptical about the war.

One former IDS backer was talking to me about Michael Howard last week. My favourite is William Hague in a year, although his pro-Americanism should make a little Englander like me blanche.

Any way let's see what happens.

Direct Hits on HMS Blair - 1st May 2003, 22.20

The meeting of the four partners, under the disparaging description of 'Old Europe', may have been widely reported in the media as a radical step towards a separate European defence, but the details show that the politicians are strong on Gaullist rhetoric, short on actual detail.

Having said that, the significance of the mini-summit was in its gesture of independence, rather than the detailed content. The suggestions, at root, are almost identical to existing plans for the rapid reaction force. The main difference is in language, calling the heart of the force a “nucleus of a collective capability”, which dodges the question of its exact size. It would be formed by “interested parties”, rather than all EU countries — leaving open the chance that Britain might be left out.

One could conclude that "Yesterday’s scheme is largely posturing".

However, Nick Clegg was "gobsmacked" by Blair's acceptance of a unipolar world in his summit with Putin and declares, without much evidence, that this will result in eventual withdrawal from the European Union. This outcome is highly unlikely as Blair continues to work within the European Convention and pursues the "special relationship". Current events only confirm that the Convention is unlikely to agree upon a common foreign and security policy.

One can debate which leader is the worst at spinning international relations: Chirac or Blair. Chirac excels in tired outbursts but Blair is ahead in public humiliations with foreign potentates. He has suffered a few bodyblows this week.