Britain
and France
---
http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7003-16.cfm
On Mar 31, 11:05 am, dick thompson <rhomp2...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> e
> The Spectator <http://www.spectator.co.uk/>
>
> The new alliance
>
> Anne Applebaum
> <http://www.spectator.co.uk/search/author/?searchString=Anne%20Applebaum>
> Saturday, 26th March 2011
>
> For the first time since Suez, America is taking a back seat to Britain
> and France in a military operation
>
> 'Freedom fries,' served instead of French fries back in 2003, are no
> longer on the menu in Washington DC. French wine, out of fashion after
> Jacques Chirac refused to join our 'coalition of the willing' in Iraq,
> is no longer shunned. Au contraire. In one Washington restaurant last
> Saturday night, someone at my table raised a toast to the new leaders of
> the free world: 'Vive la France!' What else could we do? Our president
> was on his way to Brazil. Over in Old Europe, the President of France
> and his new best friend, the British Prime Minister, had just put
> themselves in charge of a new 'coalition of the willing' in Libya.
>
> As I write, the ultimate goals and even the composition of this
> brand-new, ad hoc international grouping are still unclear. But the
> circumstances it reflects are perfectly clear. The United States of
> America is still prepared to join the rest of what we used to call 'the
> West' in policing the world, especially where the aims are entirely
> 'humanitarian' and no one will be sending ground troops. We'll even lend
> you our logistics, communications and satellite data which are, quite
> frankly, a lot better than yours. But we aren't in charge, at least in
> public. And we aren't going to stick around very long either, and I hope
> you know it.
>
> Contrary to what you may have read elsewhere, this ambivalence does not
> simply reflect the nature of our current president. For all I know,
> Barack Obama may very well be indecisive, pathologically pacifist and
> uncomfortable with American power. He might even subconsciously harbour
> anti-imperialist and anti-British sentiments, inherited from the Kenyan
> father he scarcely knew, as some bloggers (who obviously know him better
> than the rest of us) have declared. But if that is the case, then maybe
> a lot of Americans have Kenyan fathers they scarcely knew as well.
>
> There are plenty of people in Washington who do want the Obama
> administration to stop Gaddafi. From the liberal interventionists ---
> Bill Clinton, John Kerry --- to the familiar voices on the right ---
> John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Newt Gingrich --- a small flock of writers
> and politicians did indeed urge him to intervene. But since the bombing
> campaign began, we haven't heard a unified chorus of support for 'our
> troops', as we did following air strikes in Serbia, Afghanistan, and
> even Iraq. There have been no bipartisan cheers for the Commander in
> Chief either.
>
> In fact, both political parties are deeply divided, and not in any
> predictable or obvious way. Some Democrats who supported the war in Iraq
> are now against the bombing of Libya and vice versa. The Republicans are
> all over the map. Richard Lugar, the top-ranking Republican on the
> Senate foreign relations committee --- and the living embodiment of the
> words 'moderate' and 'centrist' --- is openly sceptical. The Tea
> Partiers are loudly critical. John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, is
> sitting on the fence, torn between America's 'moral obligation' to help
> the oppressed and what he's called the president's failure to 'define
> for the American people, the Congress and our troops what the mission in
> Libya is'.
>
> Perhaps because they suspect this ambivalence is shared by both the
> public and the military, the administration isn't sounding much more
> enthusiastic. The president himself has been AWOL all week in South
> America, which is probably just as well: if he doesn't say anything,
> everyone's expectations will remain low. The Secretary of State has let
> it be known that she favoured intervention, but has nevertheless stated
> that the US 'will not lead'. The defence secretary, who publicly
> complained about the hazards of no-fly zones just last week, has
> reassuringly declared that the United States will be handing military
> control of the mission over to Nato 'in a matter of days'.
>
> Which brings us to the heart of the problem: this isn't a Nato mission
> --- and if it becomes one, it will be over the angry protests of
> Germany, Turkey and a clutch of others. But although some have called
> this Libyan campaign a return to the Clinton era --- a time when
> Americans enthusiastically led idealistic excursions into Bosnia and
> Somalia --- this isn't the 1990s either.
>
> In fact, there is an earlier precedent here, one which might be more
> relevant. Think about it: America is in a grumpy, isolationist mood.
> France and Britain are waving their sabres. The European Union and Nato
> are, so far, nowhere to be seen --- it's as if they didn't exist. In its
> essence, this is an Anglo-French mission, with a few others trailing
> along behind and some fluctuating but unreliable international support.
> The only precedent I can think of is... Suez. Or maybe the Crimean war.
>
> Not many multilateral, European expedition forces have operated in
> recent decades, and it's not going to be easy to make this one work. For
> years now, a large contingent of Europeans has complained about the
> clumsiness and pushiness of American global leadership. At the same
> time, an equally large contingent of Europeans have prevented the
> formation of an alternative. Years of diplomacy, debate and endless
> national referendums designed to create a European foreign policy
> mechanism culminated, a couple of years ago, in the selection of two
> little-known and anyway powerless figureheads as Europe's 'president'
> and 'foreign minister'. Attempts to launch even embryonic European
> defence forces have been stymied by lack of seriousness, lack of money,
> and a good dose of British scorn. Some people don't want a European
> defence organisation inside the EU. Some don't want one outside the EU.
> Nobody has seriously contemplated a real overhaul of Nato, or tried to
> imagine giving it a European arm.
>
> As a result, neither Cameron, Sarkozy or anyone else yet has any plan
> for how the world --- and the West --- is going to operate without the
> clumsy and pushy yet forceful and enthusiastic American leadership which
> their predecessors have been grudgingly following since 1945. Nobody
> knows what a European military operation is supposedly to look like any
> more either, let alone an Anglo-French military operation. But we are
> about to find out: the opportunity to lead one has just been handed to
> the leaders of Britain and France, for the first time since 1956.
>
> It is said that Napoleon, when asked what quality he most admired in
> generals, replied that there was only one: 'Luck'. Maybe Cameron and
> Sarkozy (Napoleon's true heir in so many ways) will get lucky, and
> Colonel Gaddafi's forces will crumble as the Taleban's once did, under
> the shock of a powerful bombing campaign. But if that doesn't happen,
> the French and British leaders are about to be tested in unexpected
> ways. Can they make rapid military decisions together? Can they
> co-ordinate their diplomacy?
>
> Most of all, can they keep this up without the active support of the
> Americans? President Obama has been very clear about his intentions. 'It
> is not going to be our planes maintaining the no-fly zone,' said Obama
> in El Salvador. 'It is not going to be our ships that are going to be
> enforcing the arms embargo.' If he sticks to that, there had better be
> some British planes and French ships to replace them. If not, this
> story, which is starting to sound like Suez, might end up like Suez too.
>
> The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP. All Articles and
> Content Copyright �2011 by The Spectator (1828) Ltd. All Rights Reserved
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