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 Recent commentary from National Journal: Media: A Soft, Cracking Sound (February 25, 2003) The selling of war with Iraq is not going as well as the White House wants us to believe. By William Powers. Legal Affairs: How Civil-Libertarian Hysteria May Endanger Us All (February 25, 2003) Congress was stunningly irresponsible in hobbling a program aimed at catching terrorists. By Stuart Taylor Jr. Political Pulse: From 'Yes, But' to 'We Told You So'? (February 25, 2003) If a war with Iraq were to go badly, top Democrats could point out they'd had qualms. By William Schneider. Media: The Poodle Speaks (February 19, 2003) Foreign critics are barking up the wrong tree when they complain about U.S. news media coverage of Iraq. By William Powers. Social Studies: America Can Beat Iraq. But Can It Vanquish France? (February 19, 2003) There's nothing new about France's self-defeating line. What is new is that the administration isn't buying it. By Jonathan Rauch. Legal Affairs: Perverting the Legal System: The Lead-Paint Rip-Off (February 19, 2003) No victim of lead poisoning will get a dime in compensation from Rhode Island's pending lawsuit. By Stuart Taylor Jr. Political Pulse: The Cowboy and the Diplomat (February 19, 2003) Together, Bush and Powell bring leadership and legitimacy to the U.S. policy on Iraq. By William Schneider. More from National Journal. |
Wealth of Nations 
In Europe, Governments On One Side, Voters On the Other Tony Blair's backing of Bush is proving to be a much bigger political gamble than he ever imagined. by Clive Crook .... The White House apparently believes that divisions in Europe over the need to confront Saddam Hussein are of small concern. In many ways, it is right. America does not need Europe's help to deal with threats to its security. Militarily, it may be better off alone—or with just a few allies that are strategically placed or competent for niche tasks. The objections to war being expressed by the governments of France, Germany, Russia, and others are unpersuasive. America has made its case repeatedly and at length, and the dissenters have failed to offer any plausible alternative to war. Given their earlier agreement to "serious consequences" for Saddam if he failed to disarm, their good faith is now in question. America should not be surprised or even unduly disappointed. Much as these governments may recognize the danger that Iraq poses, they can count on America to deal with the problem alone if they stand aside. Superpowers must expect the weak to free ride on their strength, complaining as they do so. It might—I say "might"—be going too far to regard French disagreement with American foreign policy as a decisive point in favor of that policy. But there is no reason it should make America think twice. However, the split among Europe's governments is only one of its current divisions. There is more to this than "new Europe" quarrelling with "old Europe," or allies you can count on falling out with defectors you can count on. Another split is widening daily. This one divides the countries (and not just in Europe) that have allied themselves most closely to the United States. On one side are governments, and on the other is public opinion. Nowhere is this democratic rift wider than in Britain. This past weekend, well over a million people demonstrated in London against war with Iraq. (In American terms, scaling up for population, the marchers would have been more than 5 million strong.) It was the biggest political protest in the country's history. The newest opinion polls show a steep decline in the popularity of Tony Blair and his Labor government. The prime minister's meager consolation is the even-greater unpopularity of the opposition Conservative Party (which fully agrees with the government on the need for unstinting support of American action against Iraq). Blair has not yet sought or received parliamentary backing for military action. Constitutionally, he does not need it. Politically, he would dearly love to have it. His calculation has been that a second United Nations resolution explicitly endorsing war would deliver that support very comfortably, and secure a majority of the public in favor of force as well. Without that resolution, Blair would still expect to win a vote in the Commons—with heavy and humiliating defections from his own party offset by heavy and humiliating support from the Tories—but not to swing public opinion. His backing of President Bush, the right policy in my view, is proving to be a much bigger political gamble than he had ever imagined. Why is Blair in such difficulty? The country is usually inclined to take America's side, after all. (Do not be misled by the anti-American, pro-European BBC. Britain's public broadcaster is run by statist Europhiles who regard Bush as a bumbling fool and see popular suspicion of the European Union as barbarian. The BBC is a "public service," and therefore unrepresentative of the public.) But Britain has not yet suffered a terrorist attack remotely on the scale of the atrocities of September 11. So it has no corresponding sense of urgency or determination to pre-empt the next, possibly worse, attack. Remember, too, that in dealing with its own terrorist problem and securing the present uneasy peace in Northern Ireland, Britain did not strongly confront, let alone defeat, the Irish Republican Army. The government negotiated a settlement that many in the province regard as a surrender. Respectable opinion in Britain has long held that terrorism cannot be defeated by force. In Northern Ireland, Britain put this appeaser's doctrine into effect. Even if you believe that Britain's policy in Ulster was right, there is an enormous difference between that kind of terrorism and the sort that confronts the West today. The IRA was a rational actor with intelligible objectives. Mutual accommodation was at least thinkable. Also, the IRA needed to retain the support of sympathizers in the United States. That vital consideration ruled out killings on anything like the scale of Al Qaeda's. The terrorists whom America and its friends face now are not rational in any sense we understand; have no aims we could capitulate to, even if we were willing; and will not hesitate to use weapons of mass destruction once they have them. There is no choice but to confront them and their well-wishers as forcefully as possible. Many Britons would accept all that. The fact remains that Bush's "war on terror" sits uncomfortably with Britain's understanding of its own experience of terrorism. On top of all this is the desire—unworthy, but understandable—to let America carry the burden alone, so that Britain does not become a terrorist target. Britain is not immune to the logic of weakness, the desire to free ride on another's strength. Perhaps it is less inclined than some to dress this up as moral superiority, but it is not immune to that either. The opinion polls do suggest that a majority would support a war against Iraq so long as a second resolution at the United Nations explicitly authorized it. If you recall, that was the position in the United States as well, up until Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's recent presentation to the Security Council. That was when a good number of Americans decided that if Powell's evidence had failed to persuade the U.N., it was the U.N. that was at fault. There has been no corresponding shift of opinion in Britain. In recent days, views have moved the other way. And for now, a U.N. resolution explicitly authorizing war looks out of reach. Watching Powell at the United Nations, one saw what an asset he is. It was an unflashy performance; partly for that reason, it inspired trust. Powell's initial reluctance to go to war with Iraq makes his more recent grim determination all the more impressive. (In almost anybody else, one would look for tactical calculation behind that change of posture.) Britain has nobody remotely of this stature in a position of authority, and—much as it may surprise his many ardent American admirers—Blair himself is almost universally regarded in his own country as shallow and untrustworthy. Even I, who flattered myself that I had no illusions on this score, was amazed by the most recent instance of the British government's ham-fisted dishonesty. The intelligence briefing on Iraq's "Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception, and Intimidation," presented to Powell and the Security Council, favorably referred to by the secretary of State in his speech, and purportedly drawn up by Britain's security services, turned out to be chiefly a scissors-and-paste job using out-of-date public sources. It included pages of unattributed direct quotation from a graduate student's dissertation. Instantly found out, the document was incompetent even as plagiarism. The security services disowned it, dismayed at the harm to their reputation. The briefing, it then emerged, had been drafted not by MI6 or by intelligence experts of any kind, but by a team of junior political officials reporting to the prime minister's chief spin doctor. Staggering—and yet entirely in character. Hardened to this kind of thing, the British public is now distrustful of its government to a degree that is literally putting lives at risk. When the army and armed police descended in force on London's Heathrow Airport last week, amid reports of a plot to bring an airliner down with a shoulder-launched missile, it was widely assumed that the operation was just another stunt to manipulate opinion. Ministers were furious to be accused of this and insisted, very plausibly, that the threat and the intelligence pointing to it were real. As long as the government commands so little trust, how can it hope to convince skeptics, let alone committed opponents, of the need to fight Saddam? If Britain had a constitution like America's, Blair would be unable to deliver the military support he has promised. The country is not evenly divided: A substantial majority of the public opposes war on the terms that now present themselves. Because he is in too deep—and possibly out of conviction as well—Blair will most likely keep his promise regardless. I suppose that makes him a good friend of America. He would have been a much better friend if he had done what was once quite possible but may be no longer—namely, align British opinion, as well as its limited military resources, behind a just cause.
What do you think? Discuss this article in the Politics & Society conference of Post & Riposte. More from National Journal. More on politics and society in Atlantic Unbound and The Atlantic Monthly. Clive Crook is a columnist for National Journal and the deputy editor of The Economist. This column appears every other week in National Journal, a weekly magazine covering politics and government published in Washington, D.C. For information on National Journal Group publications, see NationalJournal.com. Copyright © 2001 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved. |
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