David Cameron, the new, young and talented leader of the Conservative Party, the official opposition, in the United Kingdom, has appointed William Hague, a previous and unsuccessful leader who has since rehabilitated himself in the eyes of many at Westminster, to be his shadow foreign secretary. William Hague recently led a small team of senior shadow Cabinet members to Washington, to try to repair existing strained relations with the Bush administration. It has been a successful visit, and I expect that David Cameron will be received in the White House before many months have passed.
Addressing the John Hopkins SAIS Center for Trans-Atlantic Relations, William Hague sensibly played the part of the candid friend. Surely one of the tasks of a good friend is not just to praise but to criticize when appropriate? Countries, however large, strong and important, like people are also in need of the candid friend.
William Hague, who is enthusiastic about American politics and a keen supporter of the Atlantic alliance, told his audience the argument was “not about whether we should be tough on terror but how we should be tough on terror”. He suggested his party would not sign up “to every dot and comma of US foreign policy”. As a steadfast ally he thought Britain’s role should be “solid but not slavish, firm but also fair, robust but clear-headed”. He left his audience with the impression that he thought on occasions the way the United States had conducted its declared “war on terror” had undermined America’s “moral authority”.
The contrast with the way Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw approach Anglo-American relations was very strong. In Nelson Mandela’s neat phrase of a few years ago Tony Blair had become a self-appointed “foreign minister” for President George Bush, and in public both Tony Blair and Jack Straw appear subservient to the American leader, with whom as members of the Labour Party they have little in common. Your average Labour MP is horrified by the behavior of the neoconservatives — and many Conservative MPs as well. Both Tony Blair and Jack Straw may keep their reservations for private conversations, and it is sensible to keep the harsher language for such occasions, but there is also a need for diplomatically worded public criticism. I have heard many American Congressmen say they wish the “Brits” would be more frank sometimes in public.
A friendly and robust debate can improve trans-Atlantic relations. Without it, as has been the case for years, the impression is given that the British agree with every twist and turn of American foreign policy, which is miles away from the truth. A nation should stand up for its own beliefs and values. I am not in favor of what Lord Peter Carrington, a former Conservative foreign secretary, once described as “megaphone diplomacy” but that is a different matter.
Among the subjects lined up by William Hague for careful criticism were global warming — an issue of the greatest concern in Whitehall — the blunders in US-Iraq policy — for example the initial disbanding of the Iraqi Army — and the two embarrassments of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.
A fundamental matter for the United Kingdom is that of habeas corpus, which since the days of the Magna Carta has ensured that a person cannot be imprisoned without a legal hearing or while awaiting that hearing. The United States has a similar right recognized in its own legal system. At home Americans have great respect for the law. They are proud of their written constitution, their Supreme Court and their right to be tried by a jury. But abroad Americans regularly demonstrate little respect for the law. Might is right seems to be the new thinking — as practiced by Israel also.
The British government, which had its own problems at Belmarsh jail with a tiny number of alleged terrorists, has been notably feeble over the international scandal of the hundreds of detainees at the Cuban naval base and at bases elsewhere in the world including Afghanistan. Only a few days ago I heard Jack Straw on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ program suggest that American had few options available to it in dealing, after the removal of the Taleban, with captured and alleged terrorists. In my opinion Guantanamo should never, ever, have been regarded as an option. Like Tony Blair, Jack Straw is a qualified barrister and an expert in the law.
These are early days for the new Conservative shadow Cabinet, and they face serious problems — particularly over Europe — in presenting a sound foreign policy. But I, for one, welcome enormously the early evidence that they are going to attempt to put Britain’s relationship with the United States back onto more traditional lines — including that of the close but candid friend.
