A New World Disorder?
Blair is right about one thing, writes Nick Clegg MEP: after this war, the world will never be the same
Friday March 21, 2003
On one thing, at least, Tony Blair was right. As the messianic passion of his speech to the House of Commons earlier this week reached its climax, he claimed that the Iraq conflict would "shape the pattern of politics for the next generation". You bet. As multilateral institutions crumble, alliances fall apart, religions clash, and the chilling prospect of a permanent global terrorist threat looms, the long shadow of this ill-judged war will stretch far into the future. For once, Blair's taste for hyperbole was justified.
As a youngster in politics, Blair's words set me thinking. How will Blair's actions be judged in five, 10, 15 years? Is the global order really changing irrevocably? How will we cope tomorrow with the consequences of Blair's actions today?
Some of the more glib answers from the army of commentators jostling for space in the newspapers and airwaves can be readily dismissed. There is, for instance, an emerging view that if the conflict is short and relatively bloodless, then Blair will be vindicated and strengthened at home and abroad. Normal political service, it is suggested, will simply be resumed. Some have even claimed that a brutally brief war will be the ideal launchpad for a euro referendum in the UK. On an issue already marked by too much wishful thinking, this latest prediction takes the biscuit.
Let us be under no illusions. Irrespective of the length of the military assault on Iraq, Nato is a busted flush, the UN damaged, the European-US relationship tested to destruction, relations between EU member states seriously damaged, and public opinion deeply perplexed by the high-handed moralism of Bush and Blair. A short war will not repair this political collateral damage overnight. Humpty Dumpty cannot easily be put together again. The damage runs deep. Blair is right - the next generation will have its work cut out.
So how is the next generation supposed to navigate in a political world being turned upside down? Is it possible to discern a way ahead through the sandstorms and political fog of an impending war? Perhaps not. Like many others, I am still reeling at the dangers and risks of it all. Disbelief about the present is not the best foundation for predictions about the future.
Still, it's worth a try. The sooner the debate shifts to what might emerge from the political rubble, the better. Here are two guesses:
First, Blair's place in history is now in Bush's hands. Again and again, Blair has asserted that his strategy is primarily aimed at binding the US to wider multilateral rules. Bush's 11th hour statement on the Middle East "roadmap" for peace, a commitment to involve the UN in Iraq's construction, plus a cynical emphasis on French intransigence, were the essential ingredients which allowed Blair to see off serious domestic political opposition. Promises of a rebirth in American commitment to global rules mixed with old fashioned bashing of the frogs have saved Blair's bacon. This time.
If Bush does indeed force Ariel Sharon's hand in the Middle East, has a change of heart and signs up to the Kyoto protocol on global warming, deigns to join the international family of nations in the international criminal court, and re-engages in a web of multilateral agreements covering everything from biological weapons to nuclear test bans, Blair's high risk strategy will be vindicated. And I will happily eat my words.
But if Bush reneges on his flimsy espousal of a more even handed, less unilateral, foreign policy, Blair will be finished. The fig leaf dignifying Blair's allegiance to Bush will be removed. He will be seen as a gullible, if sincere, patsy, unwittingly providing support to precisely that which he is striving to avoid: rampant go-it-alone US unilateralism. If the US attack on Iraq proves to be the first step in a series of unilateral interventions against the "axis of evil", selected and prosecuted by a clique of neo-conservative ideologues in Washington, then Blair's judgement will have proved to be both naive and spectacularly self-defeating. He is entirely hostage to Bush's fortune. I don't envy him.
Second guess: don't write Europe off. It is no surprise that those in the Conservative party who support Blair on Iraq do so with particular fervour because they see it is doing so much to damage the EU, the real object of their undying loathing. In a debate on Iraq this week in the European parliament, europhobic Tory MEPs were cockahoop. Blair, previously their political nemesis, has emerged as the greatest advocate of Tory Atlanticism and a devastating catalyst for European disharmony. They can't believe their luck. But my hunch is that they, and Blair, will be proved wrong. The relish with which the anti-European British press has rushed to proclaim the last rites over the EU's fledgling common foreign security policy is premature. The EU has a habit of rebounding strongly from internal crisis and strife.
Jose Maria Aznar is soon to retire, and no other Spanish politician thinks that Madrid can rely upon London and Washington for good. Italy, despite Silvio Berlusconi's flirtation with Atlanticism, remains fervently euro-integrationist. France and Germany have been driven into each other's embrace. The central and eastern European countries, despite their controversial statements of loyalty to the US, understand the real pecking order in the EU. London is likely to emerge once again isolated. The UK will not be able to dictate terms when the inevitable attempt to resuscitate plans for greater EU foreign policy cooperation return.
The facile illusion nurtured by Blair and the Conservatives that the UK can forever straddle the Atlantic, avoiding a choice between America and Europe, will collapse. The French, above all, are now determined to force us to make that choice. Blair is incapable of facing the dilemma because he refuses to acknowledge that you can't be two things at once, a leader on both sides of the pond, a Janus-faced friend to both Europe and America. To use New Labour speak, sometimes you need to take tough choices. Wake up. Grow up. Get real. It's time to decide.
But by then Blair may well be gone and it'll be for the next generation to sort out, once and for all.
politics.guardian.co.uk |
