Patten lays into Bush's America Fury at
president's 'axis of evil' speech
Jonathan Freedland in Brussels
Saturday February 9, 2002
The Guardian
Chris Patten, the EU commissioner in charge of Europe's
international relations, has launched a scathing attack on
American foreign policy - accusing the Bush administration of a
dangerously "absolutist and simplistic" stance towards the rest
of the world.
As EU officials warned of a rift opening up between Europe and
the US wider than at any time for half a century, Mr Patten tells
the Guardian it is time European governments spoke up and
stopped Washington before it goes into "unilateralist overdrive".
"Gulliver can't go it alone, and I don't think it's helpful if we regard
ourselves as so Lilliputian that we can't speak up and say it," he
says in today's interview.
Mr Patten's broadside came as the French prime minister,
Lionel Jospin, warned the US yesterday not to give in to "the
strong temptation of unilateralism".
Like France, Mr Patten singled out Mr Bush's branding of Iraq,
Iran and North Korea as "an axis of evil".
"I find it hard to believe that's a thought-through policy," he says,
adding that the phrase was deeply "unhelpful".
EU officials concede that the US and Europe could now be on a
collision course over Iran, with the EU determined to forge a
trade and cooperation agreement with Tehran just as
Washington has deemed it an "evil" sponsor of terror.
Mr Patten insists that the European policy of "constructive
engagement" with Iranian moderates and North Korea is much
more likely to bring results than a US policy which so far
consists of "more rhetoric than substance".
The commissioner's remarks represent the most public
statement yet of what has become a growing sense of alarm in
Europe's capitals at the increasingly belligerent tone adopted by
Washington.
One senior EU official said: "It is humiliating and demeaning if
we feel we have to go and get our homework marked by Dick
Cheney and Condi Rice. We've got to stop thinking that the only
policy we can have is one that doesn't get vetoed by the United
States."
Publicly, the British government continues to stand "shoulder to
shoulder" with Mr Bush. But senior Labour figures admit they
are deeply troubled by the newly aggressive thrust of US
thinking - especially the hints that America could widen the war
against terrorism to a clutch of new countries. They are likely to
seize on Mr Patten's remarks as they press their case with
Tony Blair.
In the interview the former Conservative party chairman delivers a
devastatingly comprehensive critique of US strategy. He
upbraids Washington for showing much more interest in
stamping out terrorism than in tackling terror's root causes.
"When you're addressing that agenda, frankly, smart bombs
have their place but smart development assistance seems to me
even more significant," he said.
That view is widely held in Europe, typified by Mr Blair's
much-quoted "heal the world" speech last year in Brighton. But
it barely gets a hearing in today's Washington, Mr Patten
concedes, especially since the dramatic success of the US-led
military operation in Afghanistan. That has fed a new US mood
of "intense triumphalism", according to EU officials, with
secretary of state Colin Powell regarded as "a lone voice of
reason".
Mr Bush's "axis of evil" speech appears to have been the last
straw for EU policymakers. In today's interview, Mr Patten offers
withering condemnation of the phrase.
Besides balking at the word "evil", he disputes whether the three
countries named are an axis at all, insisting there is no evidence
that they are working together on weapons of mass destruction.
But Mr Patten also expresses great irritation with Washington
for undermining long-established EU efforts to reach out to
Tehran and Pyongyang.
"There is more to be said for trying to engage and to draw these
societies into the international community than to cut them off,"
he says.
But Mr Patten's greatest ire is reserved for America's go-it-alone
approach to international relations. "However mighty you are,
even if you're the greatest superpower in the world, you cannot
do it all on your own."
He calls on Europe's 15 member states to put aside their
traditional wariness of angering the US and to speak up, forging
an international stance of their own on issues ranging from the
Middle East to global warming.
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