LONDON, 19 April 2004 — Somewhere in the mesmerizing performance by Robert S. McNamara, the former US defense secretary, in the film “The Fog of War”, he says: “America has no friends, only allies.”
It’s a phrase that should be chiseled into the Cabinet table because each new British prime minister believes that the special relationship, a phrase that is unrecognized in the States, entails special favors, access and status.
Any such illusion must have disintegrated for Blair last week after Sharon and Bush, operating in the exclusive club of their victimhood, made an announcement about the future of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Naturally, the Palestinians were not consulted; it is merely their land.
More surprising in a way was that Blair remained outside the loop from last Sunday onward when Sharon’s people met two members of the National Security Council and a senior American diplomat in Washington’s Hay Adams Hotel to thrash out an agreement before Sharon arrived 48 hours later. Blair gave no hint of bitterness in the Rose Garden press conference on Friday, but considering the risks he has taken to support America since 9/11, it was astonishingly ungracious of Bush to keep him out of these negotiations. The “Road Map” and the promise of multilateral action in Palestine were, after all, the only real concession that Blair won in exchange for British help in Iraq. Yet before he had even touched down in America, the deal was done. Bush’s undertaking to his “friend” had been chucked away like a motto in Christmas cracker.
I am one of those who believe that Blair should be relieved of his duties because of the failure to find WMD but, even so, I would not wish the humiliation he has suffered on him or any British prime minister. He has been one of America’s staunchest allies, biting his lip at the serial crassness of US commanders and arguing the American case tirelessly, as he did last weekend in The Observer. Yet, despite the enthusiastic tone at the White House, the reality is that he was cast aside as soon as Bush didn’t need him.
American foreign policy consists entirely of self-interest, never more so than in an election year when a first-term president is pursuing an extra couple of percent of Jewish votes in Florida and Ohio. For this, the president attempts to put the world’s most serious problem into storage, leaving the destiny of people hanging in the air and the world open-mouthed at the nakedness of his motives. The prime minister has argued that the Sharon plan is, in effect, stage one of the “road map” and that it may contain an opportunity for progress, but the signs are not hopeful for the simple reason that it dismisses Security Council Resolution 242 which demands an Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 borders. Drafted by the British, 242 is the central pillar of the Palestinian case and to have it dismissed by the Americans and Israelis will add to their rage and sense of injustice.
In his Observer article last week about Iraq, the prime minister wrote that a “significant part of Western opinion is sitting back, if not half-hoping we fail, certainly replete with Schadenfreude at the difficulty we find”. There’s a reason for this which he may have appreciated better at the end of last week than he did at the beginning. A vast proportion of intelligent Western opinion is sick of the world’s most delicate problems being subsumed to the ambitions of a few American politicians.
We hurried to war last year so that it wouldn’t overlap with Bush’s election campaign. We are about to hand over to a sovereign authority in Iraq, the nature of which is still unclear, so that he can distance himself from events there during the run-up to Nov. 4. Now, Bush dispatches the Palestinian problem to the distant rim of the agenda with this shoddy fix in a hotel room.
Tony Blair was wrong to suggest that some wish for failure. The world is too perilous for that; they just pray that the American and British governments understand the reasons for the failures so far. Opponents of the war may have given up worrying about the WMD, mostly because Blair and Bush no longer feel the need to answer for their mistake.
But this doesn’t allay their fears about the disastrous mishandling of the peace. The mistakes are ongoing and cumulative, chiefly because America is perceived as having a distinct bias against Arabs and Islam. Britain, though more balanced in its attitude, is dragged along in the slipstream and no one in Iraq is in the mood to make fine distinctions.
A valuable lesson, which Robert McNamara has lived long enough to learn and which he expresses with a certain gritty sadness in “The Fog of War”, is the need to empathize with your foe.
America and Britain have failed to do that at practically every turn. Western troops are not regarded as bearers of the gift of democracy but an invading force that has ripped pride and sovereignty from the Iraqi people. This is not to say that Iraqis don’t appreciate the beginnings of a free press and increased civil liberties, but other religious and cultural emotions have come into play. We must recognize them in order to isolate the real troublemakers. The most worrying trend has been the way so many stories have merged into a single current: Palestine, Iraq, the warnings to US citizens in Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden’s tape and the 9/11 hearings have all come together to create a sense of general intractability. The clash of civilizations predicted by American neoconservative thinkers seems to be happening before our eyes.
There are solutions to many of these problems, chiefly an increased role for the United Nations, now being wooed by the prime minister and Bush. Kofi Annan should use this to his advantage, for the only way to establish peace in Iraq, or Palestine, is with the international community’s reinvigorated will.
The UN is the only organization that can get Britain and America out of the mess they are in. Rather than being polite and diplomatic, the secretary-general should ram that message home, reminding them how America swept aside the reservations of the international community last year.
The UN has suffered greatly from Bush’s arrogance. He must now concede that US military might is not everything. Iraq was a mistake of a very large order and that should be entered into the public record so that the American public may consider it on Nov. 4.
All is not lost.
The solutions are there and we can reach for them if only we have the will to push back the American influence and rein in our prime minister’s ludicrous attempt to strut the world stage.
There were smiles of conviction and staunchness in the Rose Garden on Friday, indicating to some that the special relationship was not dead. But the only foreign leader who has any claim to be America’s friend had just left town with the deeds to the West Bank in his back pocket.
