Through the good graces of the Libertarian Alliance forum, I can bring Samizdata readers some remarkable chunks from an article by Amanda Platell in the Telegraph of last Tuesday, which I think will explain rather well to baffled Americans just why some of us Brits are so much less enamoured of our Prime Minister than they are. (I can’t find this piece at the telegraph.co.uk site. I think it was only a paper piece. Anyone who can – please correct me if that’s wrong.)
The start of the piece sets the scene, which of course is the death of Dr David Kelly, and then we get to the heart of the drama:
I was a journalist of nearly 20 years, editor of a national newspaper, when I decided to run a story about Peter Mandelson’s Brazilian boyfriend. My belief then, as now, was that the identity of a gay minister’s partner was as legitimate a public interest as that of Robin Cook’s mistress. Mandelson was then one of the most powerful men in government.
Before the story was even published, my executives and I underwent a barrage of calls from the Press Complaints Commission, the proprietor Lord Hollick (a New Labour peer who took the Labour whip) and from Mandelson himself.
Most chilling was the warning relayed to me by one of my executives from a senior Blairite that if I printed I would be damned – he would destroy my life, my career, my family and my children.
It was a threat made in desperate anger but one I have subsequently learned had been used before. Even then I suspected it was a “one threat fits all”, as I have no children, but the effect was no less shocking. I was sacked weeks later.
These are the bullyboy tactics perfected by Alastair Campbell, who regularly and ritually threatens journalists’ careers if they have the audacity to run something he disapproves of.The language he uses is unprintable even in a cosmopolitan newspaper. And make no mistake, even to a hardened hack, it is daunting.
I have seen grown men turn white on the phone to Campbell. And after the threats come the smears, the bad-mouthing in high places of noncompliant journalists to anyone who will listen. They destroy
reputations, or try to.So how on earth would a gentle, dedicated public servant cope with this barrage? Dr Kelly occupied a different moral realm to journalists and politicians. Bullying is part of our trade; it was never part of his.
Now, after six years, the trail of abuse of people and power leads right up to Tony Blair’s door. The mantle of the perfect family man and devout Christian is no longer enough to disguise the fact that our Prime Minister is like an old-style Mafia boss, bouncing his baby on his knee while he orders another career kill.
A reporter asked if Blair had blood on his hands. Like the Mafia boss, Blair never gets blood on his own hands. But on his conscience? Only Mr Blair can answer that.
The more I ponder on the character and demeanour of our Prime Minister, the more the parallel with, of all people, Richard Nixon comes to mind. There is the same immense public righteousness, combined with a chatty but rather contrived good humour. There’s the same happy family, with its happy family photos. There’s the same belief that whatever has to be done to keep the show on the road must be done, the same spasm of terror on the face, in the face of the slightest attack. The same unbelief among true believers that you could possibly be serious in comparing our guy with some truly bad person. The same genuine depth of insight into the larger international picture, and as a result of that insight, there are the same kind of controversial bombing expeditions. Above all, there is the same exasperation – genuine confusion even – at the thought that all this insight could be tossed aside by a pack of trivial minded journalists snapping away at the alleged wrong-doings of subordinates, which are in any case all part of the way things are done. And there’s the same bewilderment among the foreigners, especially foreign allies, that this master of the big picture could be dumped because of some stupid skulduggery in his backyard.
Nixon’s week spot, I have always believed, was that he simply could not bear to being called either immoral or stupid by his opponents. (That’s what those stupid tapes were about. They were going to prove him right and wise and wonderful in the eyes of posterity.) He would always answer the playground teasers back. He couldn’t help himself. The result was that he was admired by many, but not much liked. Reagan, and the present guy, are both relentlessly willing to soak up all the denunciations and the IQ jokes, and the end result is that when things do go wrong, they can just say: aw shucks, you can’t expect a dumb old guy like me to stay on top of everything, I guess someone screwed up, gee, sorry – and it works. With Nixon, this defence couldn’t work. If you’re so smart, matey, how come now you’re saying you never knew? This same exact question could yet be the undoing of Tony Blair.
Blair is better at contriving the appearance that he contrives than Nixon ever was, certainly to my eye, although that could just be that he is aiming his performances straight at me, while Nixon was aiming his at Americans. He is a much better actor. We’ve had ten years of Blair and we know him. We can spot the joins. The Americans have just had the Oscar performance, and they are in raptures. Nixon, on the other hand, never fooled anyone here.
Otherwise, the parallels are remarkable, and could soon prove more so.
So. What next? An opera about all this ruckus called, oh I don’t know, Blair in China?
There are certain similarities between Blair and Nixon. But it seems to me there is one big difference: a crime.
Thirty years ago, low-level Republican Party operatives burglarized Democratic Party headquaters located in the Watergate building in Washington, DC. Nixon did not know about that at the time, but he learned later. He knew about efforts to cover-up the crime and effectively participated in the cover-up himself (this also being a crime).
If Blair were to find himself in Nixon’s situation, I believe you British would ensure that he shared Nixon’s fate. But so far, there is no crime (correct me if I’m wrong).
I must claim the honor here of being one of about three Americans who found his performance in our Congress revolting. I covered it on my blog in some length (no link, for reasons of etiquette), but I still have a hard time conveying to other Yanks exactly why I find Blair so unattractive.
The simple version is: He isn’t a principled man, he just plays one on TV. And the skill with which he does so only deepens the extent of the deception. Add to that his reasons–personal, ideological, and practical–and I’m left with a picture of a politician’s politician. He has the same eerie Cheshire Cat grin as Dick Morris, and is every bit the son of a bitch as that wily old Clinton operative ever was.
George–beware. You’ve just chummed the water for a frenzy of sophistry regarding Blair’s various crimes of conscience.
Not that I mind. I’m just sayin’.
Sage, if you are ready to consign to infamy every politician who isn’t a “principled man,” then who will govern us? Certainly not the incumbent US president!
Touche’. Let’s just say that some are worse than others, and there is a limit to how much of that I can stand, and that the effects of their lack of principle are as important as their reasons for it.
You are, of course, right. But at the end of the day, I could vote over and over for a Socialist who was so devoid of principle that they were de facto libertarians. Sadly, electoral politics aren’t such that I have the opportunity. Not yet, anyway.
On rereading the exact wording of your question, I should have simply replied that we’ll govern ourselves!
we’ll govern ourselves!
Well, anarchy is a venerable political tradition, I suppose.
The Blair/Bush alliance is mysterious if one forgets the previous relationship Blair had with Clinton, and the continuous support provided in the many military adventures embarked upon by that administration. Laying judgement as to their efficacy aside for the moment, Blair was generally supportive in most all the situations where it mattered, and certainly in the major areas, i.e., Bosnia and the various operations involving Iraq.
The current situation that Blair finds himself in with the British political environment is more reminiscent of Gorbachev than Nixon, at least to me. Gorbachev was also a big hit in the West, and became the darling of the intellectual circles who love to find a Marxist with a personality, but he was widely hated and criticized at home for bringing about the collapse of the Soviet system, and for presiding over the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Similarly, Blair is adored by Americans who wouldn’t support his domestic platform for a minute, and is roundly criticized at home for betraying the left and his party’s political base by allying himself and Britain with the US’s aggressive foriegn policy.
If he isn’t named Sec Gen of the UN, he’ll probably get a teaching position down the hall from Gorby at some American university, teaching courses on Int’l Relations: How It Can Bite You in the A–.
The typical American admires Blair (or, earlier, Gorbachev) because he stands for things that seems to be important to most Americans. I see nothing wrong with this; it’s entirely rational. Blair’s approach to (say) Railtrack is of no more interest to Americans than Bush’s approach to school vouchers.
I mention to write, of course, that “Blair’s approach to (say) Railtrack is of no more interest to Americans than Bush’s approach to school vouchers is to the British“.
George peery writes:
“The typical American admires Blair (or, earlier, Gorbachev) because he stands for things that seems to be important to most Americans. I see nothing wrong with this; it’s entirely rational..”
Then, with respect, “the typical American” has been kept woefully ignorant of what it is that Blair really stands for.
For all that he presents himself as a defender of Western values (however they may be defined) he is, none the less, a socialist and a dedicated statist.
Somehow, I doubt most Americans would approve of that.
I was, and still am baffled, as to why Blair went-to-the-wall over the Iraq war. It was an amazingly high risk thing to do, and if the war had gone badly, threatened to tear the (historically anti-American) Labour party apart, and may still do so.
The only explanation I can come up with (and this is a serious comment) is religous convinction (aka God told me to).
OTOH Howard’s support was entirely predictable. He understands the lesson of modern Australian history – Australia *must* have the USA as its friend and ally.
Sage Mclaughlin, I am not aware of any etiquettte that says don’t post a relevant link to your own stuff. I would be interested in reading it.
Strangely enough the recent events (well, last 22 months) have forced me to revise my opinion of Tony Blair. I used to view him as basically unprincipled, happy to do anything that seemed vaguely popular. I think now though that has changed.
Tony Blair has stood by Bush because of the principal of being a friend. After the ‘shoulder to shoulder’ speech I think it became for Tony a matter of honour. He also thought that was the right thing for this country to do, and I imagine he thinks it is still the right thing to do.
This standing by what he thinks is right has started to filter into domestic policies. I honestly do not believe he would have had the courage to try to push through Foundation hospitals in the first term, for example.
A corollary to this is that he has become more honest – but I do not yet think that the No 10 machine has catched up with these changes. Alastair Campbell typifies the old No 10, and the new No 10 will not be able to emerge until he is gone.
I am therefore happier that Tony Blair has gone through this ‘conversion’ – even if I still oppose many of his domestic policies et al.
Phil Bradley writes:
“The only explanation I can come up with (and this is a serious comment) is religous convinction (aka God told me to).”
I have a nasty suspicion that you are right. For all Blair’s feigned outrage when asked by a cynical hack whether he and Bush prayed together, I suspect the truthful answer might very well have been, ‘yes’.
Which (in my irreligious book at any rate) makes young master Blair the most dangerous PM this country has had since the traitor, Heath.
The obvious parallel with Tony Blair for me was always Harold Wilson, Britain’s electorally most successful prime minister ever [at least if you count election victories: he won four, albeit held closer together than the three Margaret Thatcher won, including two in the year 1974] and possibly the country’s most damaging leader of the twentieth century.
He was sly, popular, and managed to present himself as fresh and modern, despite having nothing in the way of freshness or modernity. In the early 1960s he presented himself as a young alternative to the supposedly tired and old-fashioned Conservative government, led by Alec Douglas Home – perhaps a great prime minister – we’ll never know since he was PM for only one year and went down to Wilson in a sea of sneering and satire about him being an ex-lord.
Wilson rode in at the time when satire seized centre stage on British television, with shows like This Was The Week That Was and Beyond The Fringe anticipating Monty Python by seven, eight years and breaking new taboos in attacking public figures.
Cheekily, Wilson presented himself as if the author of the 1960s British pop music developing while he was in opposition, the era of Swinging London – an exact parallel to Blair’s use of ‘Cool Britannia’ in the 1990s. Both of course were actually explosions of cultural change made possible by several governments of Conservative prosperity.
Like Wilson, Blair harped on the length of time the Conservatives had been in office and uses this as a “time for a change” argument. Wilson actually campaigned on the slogan “Thirteen wasted years”, though of course the real waste, under the Labour governments of 64 and 66, was only just about to begin.
And just like Wilson, Blair presented himself as a technocrat, without remotely being one. A puzzling Wilson speech about “the white heat of the technological revolution” caused enormous excitement in the early sixties for some odd reason. Wilson had the chance to compromise with the trade unions in 1968, and ducked it in order to guard his back, then treasonously encouraged the unions to bring down the 1970-74 Conservative government with strikes in the power sector.
When Wilson resigned in the late 70s, inflation had just hit thirty per cent, its highest level ever in Britain, and unemployment had just gone through one million, its highest level in Britain since the 1930s.
I don’t know if Blair’s campaign to create ‘New Labour’ – the parallel to Wilson’s claim he would make Labour “the natural party of government” – is going to end the same way.
And of course the links are not perfect. If anything, Blair combines the glibness of Wilson with the Eurofawning of Heath. The parallel breaks down in foreign policy, where Wilson refused to go into Vietnam with the US, and Blair chose to go into Iraq with the US.
But I don’t think it was for principle.
Mark writes:
“The obvious parallel with Tony Blair for me was always Harold Wilson…”
What a shrewd and compelling analysis -congratulations.
Wilson and Blair… a pair of frauds if ever there was one.
And let’s hope we *don’t* see a re-run of Wilson’s economic meltdown!
Thanks for the shrewdness accolade, G Cooper!
I’m not saying the following link is solid, but if there is a hidden scandal which the Americans know about [as the author claims], then it might not have been principle at all which took Blair into Iraq — but political self-preservation from a threat more serious than his own party’s anger.
Conspiracy theory on why Blair helped Bush in Iraq {his penultimate link is bad}
G Cooper
And what precisely is wrong with two people praying together? Why do you feel threatened by it? Isn’t someone’s faith their own affair?
I see what you mean, Lewis, but Blair has traded rather smoothly on his faith, hasn’t he? Part of his unique selling proposition?
Blair can now say it’s no business of journalists to ask about because it’s already done its job for him – coy references to his Christianity helped him become prime minister.
mark
Unique how? iirc a goodly number of UK politicians are quite religious, including both IDS and Charles Kennedy.
As for him becoming Prime minister – perhaps your comment reflects more upon the electorate than Tony Blair?
This is the link, from the Evening Standard, in fact:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/opinion/articles/5859946
Lewis Maskell writes:
“And what precisely is wrong with two people praying together? Why do you feel threatened by it? Isn’t someone’s faith their own affair?”
In reverse order:
1/ Not if they are trying to run the country. In that case, if their religious beliefs drive their actions, it is no longer a private matter.
2/ See 1.
1/ See 1.
Mark, your analysis of Blair’s similarity to Harold Wilson is spot-on. You deserve a newspaper column. The more I think about it, the more scarily accurate your points are. However, I don’t necessarily think that Blair will do as much damage to the economy as Wilson did, especially because the independent Bank of England will make it harder for a government to print its way out of fiscal trouble. However, Blair is letting Brown do immense damage on the micro-economic front.
And on another area, Blair is probably worse than Wilson – Europe. Others may want to correct me on this, but I don’t recall that Wilson was gung-ho as a transnational progressive. Comments?
G Cooper
Presumably you then hold that no one in a position of influence should then by an automaton? That they should not hold *views*. For how is holding to Christian beliefs different in this matter from holding an Islamic or athiest beliefs?
Lewis Maskell writes:
“Presumably you then hold that no one in a position of influence should then by an automaton? That they should not hold *views*. For how is holding to Christian beliefs different in this matter from holding an Islamic or athiest beliefs?”
It’s hard not hear the sound of a personal axe being ground here, but FWIW, I’m afraid I simply cannot understand your first sentence. Perhaps you might like to try it again?
Your second point is nonsensical. Axiomatically, politicians hold views. The issue is whether we should be made aware of what they are. You seem to imply that we should not.
Your third is a non sequitur. Who, other than you, has said there is any difference?
mark – wonderful analysis of Blair v. Wilson.
Let’s not forget Wilson’s ‘pound in your pocket’ explanation of devaluation of the pound – he managed to play on some unique British mindsets to sell this to the electorate as no big deal and nothing for them to worry about. He was a masterful politician.
llater,
llamas
Well, this is a pretty pathetic piece of exaggeration and unsourced bullshit from Amanda Platell, former righthand woman to the odious David Montgomery, Aussie hottie and ruthless careerist.
Aside from the dubious “threat”, does anyone seriously think the paper gave her the sack on Blair’s say-so? It doesn ‘t work like that. Platell’s sacking would have been mainly, I would think, for being full of it.
See La Platell’s novel for a few more laughs.
I am very surprised at Samizdata bothering with this kind of patent party-political manoeuvring. Take it with a kilo or so of salt, as you usually do.
G Cooper
In answer to my second question ‘why do you feel threatened [by two people praying]’ you referred to this statement:
“Not if they are trying to run the country. In that case, if their religious beliefs drive their actions, it is no longer a private matter.”
Now, to me this sounds pretty anti-religious. My comments were simply pointing out the logical flaw in criticising someone for being religious or being driven by religious beliefs.
Phil:
I just think it presumptuous to show up on somebody’s blog and start linking to your own material. It’s your site, and it’s not intended to dig up traffic for mine.
But I’ll graciously accept, and link to my remarks here:
http://www.sageadvice.blogspot.com/2003_07_13_sageadvice_archive.html#105854659833469559
Email me a reply if you’d like.
As for why Blair “went to the wall,” well, I think the results speak for themselves. Who can deny that he is now, as the vital “link” between the US and Europe, and between Britain and the EU, an exceptionally powerful and important man? He’s playing the current situation for all it’s worth, and I’ve long been an adherent to the theory that Chirac’s opposition to the war was as much motivated by a desire to outpace Blair in the hunt for the “Europe’s most important man” mantle as anything else.
Lewis MAskell writes:
“Now, to me this sounds pretty anti-religious. My comments were simply pointing out the logical flaw in criticising someone for being religious or being driven by religious beliefs.”
What on earth do you suppose is ‘anti-religious’ about wanting to know what motivates politicians’ actions?
I, for one, would very much want to know about a Prime Minister’s beliefs when issues such as abortion, divorce law reform, adoption, human cloning and so many others were under discussion.
Wouldn’t you?
Nixon was sui generis; his salient weakness had less to do with his reaction to critics than with his near complete inability to overrule people who disagreed with him face to face.
His reaction to critics, it is true, was often fierce. It was also usually more bark than bite. The most successful people in Nixon’s administration were those who knew which of his many verbally given orders were to be taken seriously, and which ignored. The latter far outnumbered the former, and confusion of one with the other was probably a major cause of Watergate. Much more fundamental was Nixon’s continual resort to indirection, evasion and the use of backchannels in his own administration, a really amazing administrative style not adopted by any other President before or since, and made necessary because Nixon refused utterly to tell subordinates who disagreed with him that they must do things his way.
It is a remarkable thing that such a man had any success in politics at all, let alone that he sustained national prominence for the better part of his adult life. In any event, comparisons with so singular a personality should be made with great caution.
I cannot speak to Tony Blair’s domestic politics, and for an American conservative the immediate point of comparison is Margaret Thatcher, the recent British leader who used the English language in a manner most like our own and who we think — rightly or not — we understood best. By contrast to Thatcher, Blair is indeed something of an enigma, but a couple of things about him do stand out.
One is that he is plainly sincere when he speaks about tyrants of the Saddam Hussein stripe; he loathes them, thinks them a stain on the human race, and views their destruction a triumph for the human spirit. It would be rather hard to play the role he has on this score insincerely.
The other is that he has seized with gusto the traditional view of most British prime ministers since Churchill, that their first priority is close relations with the United States. This obviously gives Washington much influence in London. Historically the reverse has also been true; Britain has much more influence with American administration than it ever could have if it sought alignment with, say France or pursued the sullen aloofness from Washington that was characteristic of the Heath government in the early 1970s — and very few others whether Labor or Tory.
Now whether one thinks this is wise from Britain’s standpoint is a separate question. Still another question is whether the role Blair has played in foreign affairs will sustain him politically — personally I am doubtful of this, looking down the road two or three years, but know too little of domestic British politics to say more than that. But we do know that, as with most British PMs since 1940, Blair was with us when it counted, and in this country that counts for a lot.
Dave F writes:
“Well, this is a pretty pathetic piece of exaggeration and unsourced bullshit from Amanda Platell, former righthand woman to the odious David Montgomery, Aussie hottie and ruthless careerist.”
Far be it from me to leap to Amanda Platell’s defence, but isn’t calling her an “Aussie hottie and ruthless careerist” just lifting a couple of lines from the Alastair Campbell handbook?
I mean if you have evidence that she’s lying when she says she was threatend, then fine, please post it. Otherwise, it seems remarkably congruent with just about everything else we have heard of the way Campbell and his boot boys operate.
You also say: “Aside from the dubious “threat”, does anyone seriously think the paper gave her the sack on Blair’s say-so? It doesn ‘t work like that. Platell’s sacking would have been mainly, I would think, for being full of it.”
By that ‘New’ Labour toadie ‘Lord’ Hollick? You bet I believe it works that way!
Jonathan, llamas, and G Cooper, thanks for those kind words! Yes, I think it will be hard for Blair the pseudo-technocrat to harm the economy as much as Wilson the pseudo-technocrat. Blair is less indebted to left-wing unionists than Wilson was, the Bank of England is indeed more independent, and I think Blair will go down sooner and quicker than Wilson, so will have less time to wreak damage.
Wilson tried to take Britain into the EEC, but De Gaulle said no. So not for want of trying.
Oddly, Blair may almost combine the craftiness and surface shimmer [before he became a pipe-smoking old fuddy-duddy…. weirdly, young men could still smoke pipes and look modern in the mid sixties, but by the mid-seventies pipe-smoking had become Boring Old Uncle] of Wilson with the Euro-grovelling of Heath.
But if the FBI blackmailed Blair into joining in with the attack on Iraq, as this fringe story claims, then Blair’s last big difference with Wilson [Wilson’s staying out of Vietnam] dissolves.
Zathras
I strongly agree that Blair is sincere in most of the things he says in public.
I don’t understand this widespread idea that polticians do not have any purposes that they truly believe in. True, we may not like what those purposes are, and true, not many of them get to do much about their beliefs, but surely Blair is one of those who do.
And what Blair does believe in, which I didn’t go into in the original post other than allude vaguely to having insight into international affairs, is that all the rich, civilised and orderly countries should unite against the forces of chaos and anarchy and nastiness and tyranny. We need to replace a global system of great power rivalry with one of great power cooperation, against the new threats made possible by modern technology in the hands of terrorists,
This accounts for two things which baffle many:
First: the extraordinary speed with which he reacted to 9/11 and lined himself up alongside the USA within hours of it all happening. He had been fantasising about something like 9/11 literally for years, and there are speeches from way back which prove this, including one particularly striking one taht I recall him making in Africa, I think it was. He was not caught by surprise by 9/11, he feared/expected something like this.
Second: the fact that he combines unswerving support for the USA with also being deep into EUrope.
The point is, he doesn’t see these two policies as contradictory. He sees them both as expressions of his belief that all the Big Countries must Come Together.
EUrope may not forgive him for this. I think they regard him as someone who has to choose, between EUrope and the USA, and who has chosen wrongly. Ergo he must now go. Seriously, I think that EU supporters in Britain have all decided that Blair is no longer of any use to them.
But the fact that Blair definitely does have an agenda doesn’t mean that his day-to-day behind-the-scenes operating is nice. That is “unprincipled”, in the sense that it is apparently very nasty, by many more accounts than that of Amanda Platell.
What puzzles me is the detail of how Blair presides over that. Zathras, you describe the Nixon style, or non-style. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when Blair is giving Campbell his “guidance”. I actually think it may be scarily like your Nixon description.
Could there be a simpler explanation for Blair’s support on Iraq: that regardless of party, Suez taught both the US and Britain an important lesson -That our fates are somewhat linked.
I suspect Suez payback may have had a little to do with the lack of British help in Viet Nam (a conflict in which the Austrailians and New Zealanders did help, if I recall correctly). Lessons learned may also have decided Reagan to back Lady Thatcher in the Falklands – even to our cost in Latin America.
No doubt other influences are involved too, but I think this one may be at least a thumb on the scales.
G Cooper
The reason I interpreted that as anti-religous is this:
“I have a nasty suspicion that you are right. For all Blair’s feigned outrage when asked by a cynical hack whether he and Bush prayed together, I suspect the truthful answer might very well have been, ‘yes’.
Which (in my irreligious book at any rate) makes young master Blair the most dangerous PM this country has had since the traitor, Heath.”
Which you typed in an earlier comment in this thread. If you view someone who holds religious beliefs as ‘dangerous’ – then I interpret that as being anti-religious.
Everything else seems to stem from that.
Historically, Doug Collins is absolutely right to point to Suez as a critical turning point. What it made clear to Britain was that in a major crisis they were utterly dependent on Washington.
It made the same thing clear to France. But Britain and France (especially after De Gaulle returned to power) reacted to the lesson in dramatically different ways. Britain sought to avoid a repetition of Suez by drawing closer to the Americans; France sought to push them away. Britain sought to maximize its influence in Washington through cooperation; France sought through confrontation to prevent Washington from ignoring its views and also to increase its influence in areas where opposition to American policy was popular.
There have always been limits to the potential benefits of each course. The Anglo-American partnership could never be one between equals in the material sense — Britain could enhance its influence by associating with Washington, but its much smaller size and resources always gave Washington a louder voice in London than vice versa. For the same reason French confrontation with America could never be pushed to the point where other countries had to choose between them — if it was, they would always choose America.
Britain accepted these limitations, but a school of thought strong in France never did. This is one source of the enduring French support for an ever larger and more integrated European Union. The dream of a single power large and rich enough to deal with the United States as a full equal did not arise in a vacuum, but as a result of France’s desire to regain the Great Power status it finally lost at Suez. In order for France to achieve its historic objective, of course, the national governments in a united Europe would have to follow French direction on foreign policy at least without question. This is an unrealistic prerequisite for a course that in any case offers less to other European countries than it does to France; just how unrealistic it is may be judged from the reaction to President’s Chirac’s scolding of European governments that supported the United States over Iraq.
Now, having said all that, I would say also that Suez represented the single greatest American foreign policy mistake of the postwar period (the assumption here is that Vietnam was produced not by one bad decision but by many). The lesson it taught Britain and France was one that did not need to be taught, not only because it generated ill will or even because it gave essential encouragement to the most destructive type of Arab nationalism but because it ensured that future crises would either be dealt with primarily by Washington or not dealt with at all. Among the consequences of Eisenhower’s gratuitous humiliation of America’s allies was the enduring difficulty of getting them to act in concert on issues where they shared all the relevant values and interests.
In this sense Tony Blair is trying to rebuild a structure of cooperation that in its early stages was torn down by Eisenhower over Suez, and that Richard Nixon and (more successfully) Ronald Reagan struggled to put back together during their respective Presidencies. He might derive more domestic political benefit from this effort were he dealing with a more self-confident and less self-absorbed American President, someone like John McCain or Bob Dole who could bring himself to acknowledge not just the fact of British association with the United States but the reasons for it. But as I’ve said before my knowledge of British politics is limited, and Blair’s tenure at No. 10 may be limited by factors that have little to do with foreign policy.
Lewis Maskell writes:
“Which you typed in an earlier comment in this thread. If you view someone who holds religious beliefs as ‘dangerous’ – then I interpret that as being anti-religious. ”
No, it means that I do in Blair’s case. It informs the background to some of his more worrying character traits – not least his dangerous ‘certainty’.
I do, it is true, regard public disclosure of a politician’s beliefs to be absolutely essential because of the damage some religious views can do to people’s sanity (cf 9/11, Salem et al)
However, you have still not explained why you do not believe the knowledge matters.
Very clear analysis from Zathras. Absolutely right and fair summary of postwar foreign policy for the three countries, I reckon. And without Suez, the US might have had a Britain more worth making deals with too.
I understand your frustration with Blair’s largely socialist agenda, but for those of us in the United States, it’s hard not to admire his stand on Iraq. Deploying British military might in Iraq was not the move of an amoral, poll-obsessed Dick Morris. It was principled, but it wasn’t popular. Doing what is right over what is popular at a given moment is something Americans admire.
This is a time when America feels attacked not only by Islamofascism, but also Euro-obstructionism and fairly blatant media hostility. Tony Blair stood with us in the face of enormous political heat in the UK. However much of a socialist he is, we felt that we agreed with him on the most important issue of the day: the battle against terrorism. This is not a vibe we get from Chirac or Schroeder. At all.
I’m not trying to slight all of the domestic issues that you’re concerned with. Blair struck me as someone who understood that freedom and democracy don’t come cheap and must be defended tenaciously. I felt that, if nothing else, we shared this common bond. When someone sticks his neck out for us and joins us in doing what’s right, I simply cannot help feeling a huge measure of gratitude. I can’t overstate how nice it is to feel like you have a friend out there.
Forgive me if you believe I have fallen for an acting job, but this is how I felt and continue to feel.