'We are risking a gulf between the West and the Islamic world'
Six years ago, Will Hutton interviewed Robin Cook as he took charge of the Foreign Office after the 1997 election. Now, he returns with Kamal Ahmed to hear Cook, in his first major interview since resigning, tell why he had to go - and warn of the dangers ahead for foreign policy.
Will Hutton and Kamal Ahmed
Sunday March 23, 2003
The Observer
In hearings in the Senate in Washington last week, Richard Lugar, the Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, recalled the words of President Teddy Roosevelt. 'Roosevelt prescribed that America should "speak softly and carry a big stick",' Lugar said. 'In the present age, we are carrying an incredibly big stick, but we must be willing to spend more resources on the ability to speak softly.'
A few thousand miles away in the upstairs drawing room of 1 Carlton Gardens, London, Robin Cook, former Cabinet member, former Foreign Secretary and the first person to resign from Tony Blair's Cabinet on a point of principle, sat and considered the wreckage of a political career.
Next to him on a small table was a stuffed stoat, given to him during the arms to Iraq scandal of the Nineties. Cook led the Opposition assault on the Conservative Government when the Scott Report revealed that Ministers had turned a blind eye to possible weapons exports to Iraq without bothering to inform the public.
In his first major interview since he resigned last Monday, he looked at the dead animal and said: 'It's my good luck charm. I suppose there is a symmetry to it all. I gained my reputation on the issue of Iraq and I have left the Government over the issue of Iraq.'
Cook's position is based on more than a disagreement over whether and when military action should have been taken against Saddam. He questions the legitimacy of the war, arguing that with more time for inspectors it could have been avoided.
But there is also the larger issue of America's role in the world and how Britain should relate to the elephant over the water. Cook believes he is seeing a crisis in the world order, once based on an acceptance that the UN was the ultimate custodian of international law and now replaced by the desires of the world's first hyper-power.'America is a hyper-power, it can afford to go it alone,' Cook said. 'Britain is not a superpower. It is not in our interests to contribute to a weakening and a sidelining of international bodies like the Security Council. The Security Council and the system of world order governed by rules has been badly damaged.
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