DEC. 11, 2003: ROBERT L. BARTLEY
Robert L. Bartley
I treasure this story of Seth Lipsky’s about Robert Bartley. At a fancy dinner party in New York, it emerged that Seth--now editor of the New York Sun and before that the founder and editor of the English-language edition of the Jewish newspaper, The Forward had previously worked for the notorious Bob Bartley of the bomb-throwing Wall Street Journal editorial page. One carefully accoutered woman sniffishly asked Seth, “Whatever did you think of that man?” Seth, a man of even fewer words than Bartley, if that is possible, held a long silence. At length he answered: “I think he is the greatest newspaper editor since Horace Greeley.” So he was--and more too. I am writing a longer piece on Bob for the British Spectator. I’ll post a link here next week.
Errors of Omission
Why isn’t James Ross a national hero?
Those Iraqi Contracts
Sometimes a reader of the New York Times just has to stand back in silent admiration, like a police detective studying the scene of the crime after a particularly ingenious burglary. The Times’ coverage of the Iraqi contracts has been especially artistic. On Wednesday, the paper reported that non-coalition partners were to be excluded from $18.6 billion worth of US military contracts. On Thursday, it followed up with a long lachrymose story heavily sourced from the State Department about how this act of White-House-approved vindictiveness was dooming hopes for German, French, and Russian debt forgiveness for Iraq.
A couple of under-emphasized details might, however, have left readers with some rather different perceptions. The fact is that Germany, France, and Russia have already been pressed by the United States to forgive Iraq’s debts, most insistently at an October conference in Madrid. All three refused, as they have refused to provide significant aid to the new Iraq.
So who’s kidding whom here? The idea that the allies-only rule might somehow “embarrass” President Bush’s attempts to obtain economic assistance for Iraq is pure State Department wishful thinking. To the contrary: the swift and firm application of an attention-getting two-by-four may well be the only method to persuade the ill-intentioned three to offer any assistance.
There’s a more profound question at issue here. It is always hard for the human mind to adapt to the fact of change. For half a century, Germany has been a firm and faithful ally of the United States; France, an often annoying but still ultimately reliable friend. It’s natural to hesitate to absorb the evidence that these relationships may be coming to an end--that Germany is edging away from the old alliance and that France has for reasons of its own opted to pursue a policy of rivalry and even hostility to the United States. But if it is natural to hesitate to accept unwelcome new realities, it is dangerous to deny them. In Iraq, France was Saddam Hussein’s ally, not America’s--and France now wishes the United States, Britain, and the rest of the coalition to fail in Iraq, not succeed. It is useful for the French government and others to be made aware that Americans have observed this hostility--and that America’s future policy toward France and others will take this hostility into account.
As for Iraq’s debts, they are a matter between those who chose to lend money to Saddam Hussein--principally France, Germany, and Russia--and the new government of Iraq. The United States will of course wish to see Iraq and its creditors negotiate some settlement. But it’s also true that when debtors and creditors cannot agree, debtors sometimes simply default--refuse to pay. And what will those creditors do if Iraq does default? Invade?
11:28 PM |
