Redstate

Fear The Power Of The 'Stache

By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Ambassador John Bolton--whose presence in public life is missed--writes a very good editorial concerning British foreign policy in the Gordon Brown era. Bolton points out that under Brown, Britain is at a crossroads and has to make a decision as to whether it will cast its lot with the United States or whether it will "join itself at the hip" with the European Union. A taste:

Gordon Brown's first Washington visit as Britain's prime minister has prompted tea-leaf reading about the strengths and weaknesses of the US-UK relationship. Momentarily diverting - and probably unavoidable - as the frenzy of speculation is, the real tests lie ahead. Actions ultimately trump semiotics in national security affairs.

Moreover, as contentious and important as Iraq is, it is a mistake to think that disagreements on that issue represent a fundamental change in the US-UK relationship. Tony Blair and President George W. Bush disagreed on global warming, as will Mr Brown and Mr Bush, but in neither case does the disagreement reflect a tectonic shift.

In fact, whether the "special relationship" grows stronger or weaker lies entirely in British hands. Americans across the political spectrum are content to keep it as it is and has been essentially since the second world war. That does not mean that the two countries always agree, nor has it ever meant that Britain is a poodle following America's lead, self-flagellating Brits notwithstanding.

There are, however, more fundamental questions. Successive UK governments have taken Britain deeper and deeper into the European Union, all the while proclaiming that nothing fundamental about Britain's status was changing. Britain is not unique in this regard. Europeans advocating an "ever-closer union" continually reaffirm that they are not changing anything fundamental about their sovereign control over foreign and domestic policy.

This attitude has been widespread, but the re-emergence of a European "constitution" - under whatever name - has brought Britain to a clear decision point. The long, slow slide into the European porridge has had few clear transition points. In the aggregate, however, the magnitude of changes in the status of the EU's formerly Westphalian nation-state members can no longer be blinked away.

Thus, saying that the UK's "single most important bilateral relationship" is with America, but is not comparable with UK membership of the EU, is a clever but ultimately meaningless dodge. Drop the word "bilateral". What is Britain's most important "relationship"? Does Mr Brown regard the EU as a "state under construction", as some EU supporters proclaim, or not?

The answers to these questions are what Washington really needs to know. What London needs to know is that its answer will have consequences.

Read it all. Of course, it is a great pity that no one in public life is asking these questions in as intelligent a manner as Ambassador Bolton is. It would have been nice if he were kept around to ask these and other questions at the highest levels of government, but evidently, unjustified scalp-taking trumps virtuous efforts at talent-seeking in the staffing of a large number of prominent governmental posts.