WONDER LAND
Do You Feel Lucky, Paris?
U.S. to world: Take George W. Bush or Dirty Harry.
BY DANIEL HENNINGER
Friday, September 19, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT
It's been a long time since Americans diverted much time from their day to pay heed to the United Nations. One recalls how years back the eloquence of the first Israeli ambassador to the U.N., the late Abba Eban, transfixed even schoolchildren in the U.S. Pat Moynihan attracted some attention to the free-parking palace on the East River while he was U.S. ambassador, but of late the American heartland hasn't given much notice.
But it has now. Gallup recently polled the U.S. on attitudes toward the U.N., and the poll, excerpted below, made news because the "poor" rating of 60% put the eminent international organization at its lowest ebb ever in America. Only 3% had no opinion. Want to guess why?
The run-up to the Iraq War earlier this year was serious business, but one of the recurring leitmotifs was the French government's opposition to anything American. So much so that two days didn't pass without a new vintage of French jokes pouring into the inbox. Jay Leno: "Why did we ever think the French would help us kick Saddam out of Iraq? They didn't help us kick the Germans out of France."
Shortly after the war was over, a high official from France's Parliament visited our offices hoping to let bygones be bygones. He said we were all joined in the war on terror and that our countries' long-term interests coincided. He was visiting American editorial boards and going to Washington to see key members of Congress in the belief that if he could convince these influential people--the U.S. networking equivalent of les grandes écoles--Franco-American relations would revive.
Whereupon he was told: "Sir, there is really not much that we or the members of Congress can do for you. France's problems now are not with America's policy makers but with America's comedians."
Most of the time, the affairs of statesmen fly beneath the radar, out of the public eye. But one of the things that looks to have truly "changed" with September 11 is that the American people are attending closely to their nation's role in the world. And after a close look, they may rightly be ready to ask: What are we getting out of this, anyway?
Americans Rate the U.N.
Percentage saying the United Nations is doing a "poor job":
Men 72%
Women 55%
Conservative 69%
Moderate 60%
Liberal 59%
Republican 77%
Independent 61%
Democrat 53%
Source: CNN/USA Today/Gallup (Note: Numbers include a small percentage--3% overall--answering "no opinion.")
Americans who toured Europe this summer reported finding animosity across the Continent, almost entirely related to the Iraqi intervention, support for which among Americans remains well above 60%. Reflexive national pride may play a role, but I think the reaction and division runs deeper. In April, according to Gallup, the percentage of Americans regarding Germany as an ally dropped to 27% from 40% three years ago; France fell to 18% from 50%. So quickly kicking away what others built up in the postwar period is quite an achievement for Messrs. Schröder and Chirac (who this week allowed they'll support reconstructing Iraq). Well before Iraq, one of the elite criticisms of the U.S., heard mostly in Europe and in the American academy, has been that the U.S. is compulsively trying to "impose its values" on the rest of the world. In the mind of, say, José Bové, France's most famous farmer, this means McDonalds or Mickey Mouse. Or it is about genetically modified food production or refusing to sign global environmental treaties. But from Germany and Japan after World War II and on up to Kosovo, Afghanistan and now Iraq, I am aware of only one "value" America has tried to impose and it's not Mickey Mouse. It is democracy, or at a minimum, liberty.
Indeed, this "idealism," if that's what it is, extends generally to American views of the U.S. role in the world. While "foreign aid" is a perennial bugaboo, a German Marshall Fund survey last year found that Americans by margins between 75% to 85% support spending money to help other nations with food, medicine, women's education and AIDS. But the days are gone when the "international community" could equate this long-standing idealism to American naivete about the affairs of the world.
Like it or not, the American superpower is going to be in the world. Isolationism isn't an option, But there are two post-9/11 Americas on offer to the world. You can either get the benign version of the American superpower, the one that comes with American values, such as a belief in self-determination even for the wogs, a version that most likely will include continued support for institutions such as the U.N. Or, amid derision and abuse, you may get the truly realpolitik version, which will be mainly about cold-bloodedly protecting the superpower's commercial interests, and will include little or no interest in the U.N. and similar platforms. Americans are patient. But they aren't punching bags.
Put it this way: Either you can have George Bush's America ("In Iraq, we are helping the long suffering people of that country to build a decent and democratic society"). Or Dirty Harry's America ("But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya--punk?").
For decades, Europeans have regarded their American summer visitors as ill-dressed rubes with little sense of history or the grand, complex world beyond Peoria. In the past two years, Americans have learned a lot about history. Out of that history emerged once again the unique combination of idealism and toughness that brought the U.S. into Iraq, and will keep it there. It would behoove this country's critics to try harder to understand both impulses. If only out of self-interest.
Mr. Henninger is deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. His column appears Fridays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com |
