Mr. Bush goes alliance-mending

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See the Sol Sanders Archive By Sol Sanders SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

For good and sufficient reason, it is not fashionable [at least in this corner] to quote the French these days. But French Prime Minister Aristride Briand in 1926 might well have written President Bush’s l’envoi for his forthcoming trip to Europe: “A country grows in history not only because of the heroism of its troops on the field of battle, it grows also when it turns to justice and to right for the conservation of its interests.” It is ironic only a year later Briand should have lent his name to a Franco-American treaty which haplessly aimed at "providing for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy." It was such pious platitudinous rhetoric which led to Munich, Auschwitz [which we just “honored”], the ruthless Soviet massacre of its peoples, and the expensive and near calamitous Cold War.

U.S. power and its dominance have created an anomaly: an opportunity which Bush has tried to seize for a new world order – but at the same time created among our [erstwhile?] allies hysterical anti-Americanism. Bush will be going to Europe – concentrating on the new supposed power center in the European Union – to see if he can calm this atavistic envy snapping at American heels.

But while post-Cold War alliances problems – reconfiguration of NATO, integration of nonexistent if ambitious European defense efforts, etc. – are decided in Europe, the world’s most pressing problems are further afield. Only Europe’s inability to integrate is own domestic Islamic minorities is an issue which touches directly the worldwide war against terrorism.

The President will be talking to the Europeans about problems elsewhere where they often sabotage a difficult, sometimes bungling but realistic U.S. attempt to defuse an approaching danger. Iran is the quintessential example. Washington has sat by, somewhat impatiently, as Britain, France and Germany have tried to make a bargain with Tehran. In exchange for nuclear power [which they hardly need with among the world’s largest petroleum reserves], Tehran was to have given up nuclear weapons. But the mullahs have repeatedly lied with a far too complicitous UN International Atomic Energy Commission head wangling for a third term against East River conventions. Washington wants the issue sent to the Security Council for appropriate action [!] as a threat to peace. It may help to bring up the development of missiles in Iran which soon apparently could reach western Europe even as the Europeans develop more Iranian oil.

As important is the EU’s threat to lift its arms embargo against China. Beijing is using this possibility to blackmail Moscow for more advanced weapons. Unfortunately, Prime Minister Blair has joined Germany’s Schroeder and France’s President Chirac publicly calling for it. Bush has the unpleasant prospect of reminding the Europeans why they imposed the ban – the massacre of students and workers at Tiananmen in 1989 and little improvement in human rights since. But there is a far more serious American concern: French and British avionics would quickly change the balance of power in the Taiwan Straits, increasing the threat of war.

Following the Briand formula, Bush will have the unpleasant task of reminding Blair British BAE is America’s fifth largest defense supplier, and Chirac, Shroeder and the Dutch they want desperately to get in on the multi-billion-dollar tanker contract and continued American technological exchanges, Bush will have to beat off EU calls to exert more pressure on Israel to abandon its redlines in negotiating with the Palestinians. The President might gently remind their millions poured into those still mysterious Yasser Arafat bank accounts did not bring peace, nor has a European-dominated UN permanent refugee bureaucracy preaching hate and revenge to a third and fourth generation. Nor does the increasingly anti-semitic atmosphere in France and Belgium encourage Jerusalem to accept European mediation.

The Europeans’ failure to follow through on promises to help train Iraq security forces – outside Iraq they insisted – might be another agenda item. They will be ready – unfortunately quoting too many Democrats – to use every argument to demean the American effort in Iraq. Chirac has apparently abandoned his effort to hold a conference conferring legitimacy on the Iraq “resistance”. But it would be a mistake to think the Quai d’Orsay has given up its overarching strategy; i.e., France as a second rate power can only exercise its “glory” if it allies itself with every anti-American worldwide.

That is seen in Paris’ and the EU’s courting South Korea’s President Roh Moo-Hyun and his policy of appeasement toward North Korea. Bush needs Europe’s help in persuading Seoul, as well as pressuring Beijing, to take a firm stand in disarming Pyongyang. That won’t be easy with South Korea’s sagging economy increasingly dependent on China, and a government loaded with apologists for the Communists, even to the point of discouraging refugees who risk their lives to get out of Pyongyang’s “paradise”.

It’s a tour to test Bush’s much publicized sang-froid, as Briand might say, and his new chief diplomat Condoleezza Rice’s finesse.