You over-estimated the intelligence of your rulers du jour, Carl, a very human optimism creeping in there, a wishful thinking that they would not do this in such a manner ... pretty understandable really ... while your language to Ike over there was somewhat unparliamentary, i think you're most likely right on all points in contention
Your flag is still the flag of Daniel Webster, of Mark Twain, who argued loud and well against this sort of imperial hubris .... as well as the flag of whatever else comes along, and not to be demonised nor deified
The brits are going to have a hard choice to make here soon, at some point this Bush Doctrine will prove completely repulsive to the nation ... if the tanks turn right for Tehran, look out .... here is a piece on Robin Cook in an interview today -
' 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.
'There is a suspicion that the speed with which this has moved
has been dictated by American military preparations rather than
by the needs of Britain's diplomatic campaign. That is why it has
been so difficult for Tony to mobilise public opinion and indeed
international opinion.'
Cook makes it clear that he supports the troops. 'Now the
conflict has started I hope that the operation is successful and
that all our troops will come back,' he says.
After walking the Norfolk Broads last month and deciding that
without a second UN resolution he could not stay in Cabinet, he
says he 'has been at peace'. There was a clarity, finally, to what
he was doing.
'When I saw Tony last week I made it clear I had made up my
mind,' he said. 'He respected that.' Cook refused to comment on
the change of heart by Clare Short, the International
Development Secretary, who threatened to resign if there were
no second resolution.
But, why did Blair expend so much effort urging Short to stay? 'I
think you put your efforts into persuading people you think are
open to persuasion.'
Now Cook has been released from Cabinet responsibility, he
can say what he believes: Britain must heal the wounds with
Europe, particularly France and Germany, for any chance of
creating a balance to hyper-power politics, he says. Britain
wasbounced into a conflict in Iraq because of an American
military imperative, he says. The Bush administration does not
share the values of Britain or Europe, he says. If Britain does not
find a way to say no to the US then the concept of international
solidarity is dead.
Cook knows the world is dealing with a new reality of
'pre-emptive diplomacy', the new American doctrine held dear by
Bush and his inner circle.
The policy is clear: America will act whenever and wherever it
believes that the target threatens US interests. And the biggest
threat is the support for interna tional terrorism. Any rogue state
is now a legitimate target.
Within this doctrine is the argument that, if affairs are left to
international institutions such as the UN, there is a greater
chance of prevarication and diplomatic stalemate. America
wants to act, and quickly. Every day that a dictator is left in
power, runs the argument of the American conservatives, is
another day when the very fabric of America is at stake.
America will act - with a coalition of the willing if necessary. On
its own if not. Impatience runs through the thinking.
'The events of 11 September created an entirely new sense, not
only in America but around the world, of the priority and urgency
of dealing with international terrorism,' Cook said. 'It had a
particularly powerful effect on American society because they
are not accustomed to war coming to them.
'But, if you take a response to 9/11 as being a driving force of
the American approach to international affairs, I would strongly
argue that one of the greatest assets that came out of that was
the extraordinarily rich and powerfully diverse coalition against
international terrorism.'
That coalition, according to Cook, has now been shattered on
the altar of pre-emptive diplomacy. America has long planned to
attack Iraq and splits in the UN, Nato and in the European Union
were a price worth paying.
'Now, I'm not an American politician but if I was I would be
inveighing against the extent to which the Bush administration
had allowed that terrific asset to disintegrate,' Cook said.
'Instead the US is left embarking on military action from a
position of diplomatic weakness, unable to get any major
international organisation to agree with it. We are heading for a
very serious risk of a big gulf between the Western and Islamic
world. That seems to me to have thrown away a powerful asset
for the US which relates to its number one security concern.'
How far away Cook must feel from those heady days after
Labour's 1997 election victory. Then, in an interview with The
Observer, Cook, just installed as the first Labour Foreign
Secretary for 18 years, spoke of a new world order built on
international consensus.
'We want to take Britain out of a position of isolationism,' he
said. '[We want to be] a leading member of the international
community. Personally I think we are entering a period when
international politics is coming of age.'
He believes there were a number of years of progress when Blair
shared a world vision with Bill Clinton, whose administration
agreed with Britain's 'fundamental values'. But Britain's
closeness to the Bush administration over Iraq is flawed.
'What changed in the last two years is that we are dealing with
the Bush administration and there are people in that
administration who don't care for any multilateral system
committed to security and development,' he said.
'The State Department [the US Foreign Office] is very weak. The
Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld axis is the motor of the Bush
administration. They do not allow much space for [Colin] Powell
[Secretary of State].'
Of Bush's Axis of Evil speech, when he named Iraq, Iran and
North Korea as the enemies of the free world, Cook says,
archly, that 'whoever wrote it' was ignorant of the realities.
'The immediate effect of the speech was to achieve a major
reverse for the reformers in Iran,' he said, pointing out that the
ayatollahs used the speech to attack America and democratic
forces at home. 'If we are going to have a multilateral system
we've all got to have ownership of what the priorities are going to
be.'
Cook says that Britain now finds itself in a diplomatic position
'that it will come to regret'. Too close to America, too far away
from Europe.
'Where should we be looking for the future direction of Britain's
strategic international relations, for me the answer is Europe, to
make sure that we are a major player and we are passionate
that Europe speaks with a strong voice which means we try and
speak without a divided voice,' he said.
'There are many reasons for that but the need to have an
alternative pole, not a rival, but an alternative pole within
international affairs is one of them. I have always been strongly
committed to a multilateral system. We must respect
international institutions.
'We need to engage in an international community that can bring
to international forums and state with clarity the type of
European values that are certainly not shared by many of those
in the Bush administration,' he said.
'Firstly a respect for multilateral protocols, secondly if we are
going to achieve a world governed by rules then we need to
respect international process. There are two other European
themes: a respect for global environmentalism and that the
priorities of the international community reflect the massive
priority of tackling poverty.
'We are not going to win the international war against terrorism
unless we also win the international war against poverty.'
He suggests that when Bush decided push had come to shove,
Britain should have said no. The inspectors needed more time,
and Britain should have been strong enough to say so. 'Tony
genuinely believed he could deliver unity behind the US for
confrontation and that this unity in itself would produce sufficient
progress on the part of Iraq that would have averted war,' Cook
said.
'One of the reasons we didn't get that unity was because people
felt that there was an impatience on the part of America to push
the pace at which other countries would not readily go.
'Also, there were some noises off from the US which undermined
our diplomatic effort. Calling France and Germany Old Europe
was not helpful to what the British diplomats were trying to
secure.
'One lesson is that although we must maintain our traditional
alliance with America while it has an administration which does
not share our world view or our values we have to make sure that
we keep enough distance, that there is an option for Britain to
come to a different conclusion.'
Cook and his stuffed stoat will soon be moving out of the
Government apartment he has lived in since 1997. He expects
that resignation is 'a one way street' and it is unlikely that he will
ever return. And each day he will watch the bombing live on
television certain in the belief that it could all have been avoided. '
observer.co.uk |
