"We are all internationalists, whether we like it or not,"
declared British Prime Minister Tony Blair in a speech in Chicago four
years ago. He has frequently called for strengthening the United Nations,
for pursuing the environmental strategy of the Kyoto accord, for the
establishment of a permanent international tribunal for the prosecution
of war crimes suspects, and for an impartial settlement of the Israeli
Palestinian conflict.
To all of these positions, President Bush and his neo-imperialist advisers
strenuously object. They want America to lead and set the policy agenda
for the rest of the world. They apparently will rather do without allies
than subject the United States to opposition in the United Nations,
to an international court, to ecological controls, or justice without
the death penalty.
Worldwide, the internationalists are upset about the uncompromising
unilateralism of the Bush administration. Tony Blair, however, remains
an optimist. He, like most Europeans, respects America too much to give
up on the Atlantic Alliance. When the friends of Sharon at both ends
of Pennsylvania Avenue decided that the forcible ouster of Saddam Hussein
was more important than peace in the Holy Land, Tony Blair decided that,
since he could not change the President's priorities, he would join
him in his determination to get rid of Saddam. After all, most world
leaders despised the Iraqi tyrant but disagreed only over how he might
best be contained.
Upon Blair's prodding, Bush reluctantly agreed to ask the U.N. Security
Council to approve the use of force against the Iraqi regime. When Russia
and France refused to go along, Blair decided that joining in the American
initiative was necessary and right, even though it met with strong opposition
among the British people.
Siding with the U.S. administration, however, gave the prime minister
the opportunity to ask the President for political concessions, particularly
on his reticence to prod Israel's rulers into ending the oppressive
occupation of Palestinian lands. Britain's foreign secretary, Jack Straw,
explained that "there is real concern that the West has been guilty
of double standards-on the one hand saying the United Nations' Security
Council resolutions on Iraq must be implemented, on the other hand,
sometimes appearing rather quixotic over the implementation of resolutions
about Israel and Palestine."
Prime Minister Sharon responded instantly when he heard that Blair had
persuaded Bush to draw a "road map" toward achieving Middle
East peace. The British ambassador to Israel was called in and told
that recent British statements are "worrisome and outrageous."
After all, Sharon had been publicly gloating over the rift between the
Bush administration and the Europeans, particularly Russia, France,
and Germany, who have long pleaded for more American evenhandedness
in the Middle East.
When Blair committed British troops to aid the U.S. invasion of Iraq,
he never turned his back on the dissenting Europeans, notably President
Chirac and Chancellor Schröder. While Bush pouted over their refusal
to do his bidding, Blair stayed in touch with both. He clearly wants
to maintain his leadership role in the European Union, in a Europe "of
free, independent sovereign nations who chose to pool sovereignty in
pursuit of their own interests and the common good, achieving more together
than we can achieve alone." In Blair's view, this Europe ought
to be a "superpower but not a superstate."
In sharp contrast to Mrs. Thatcher, Mr. Blair is not a Europhobe who
looks at Germans and Frenchmen as perennial problems rather than as
equal partners. Like Mrs. Thatcher, Mr. Blair is a friend of America.
But unlike Mrs. Thatcher, he represents political views that clearly
differ from those currently dominant in the White House and Congress.
With a friend like Tony Blair, President Bush surely is in for some
valuable discussions on the proper course of the world to come.