Could anything have checked America’s mad rush to war in Iraq in 2003, driven as it was by a cabal of neoconmen intent on cynically manipulating the trauma of 9-11 to achieve a different agenda?
Perhaps (1) if Colin Powell had the courage to resign on principle rather than allowing himself to be pressured into giving his disgraceful imitation of Adlai Stevenson's performance at the UN during the Cuban Missile Crisis, or almost certainly (2) if the UK Prime Minister Tony Blair sided with France, Germany, and Russia and the majority of Europeans in opposing the Iraq war. Of course, no one will ever know, but Powell enjoyed immense moral stature at the time, and without his cheerleading, the veneer of Bush’s and Cheney’s moral authority would certainly have been far weaker. The case of Blair, aka Bush’s poodle, is more complex: If the UK sided with Europe, Bush would have been isolated and the march to war very likely might well have been still born.
But a large number, perhaps a majority, of the English people do not see themselves as being Europeans. And the English elites, like Blair, trust instead in using the UK’s “special relationship” with the US to punch above their weight in world affairs. Viewed narrowly, the UK-US special relationship has roots in WWII, but the UK’s proud sense of separateness from Europe reaches back at least a 1000 years in history and is grounded in its island geography. The English have never resolved the question: Are they part of Europe? The UK’s tepid membership in the EU illustrates the point.
The below op-ed by Immanuel Wallerstein argues that European question is again coming to forefront of British politics and pressure to leave the EU is mounting. Moreover, the question is being complicated by the growing regional tensions in Northern Ireland, Wales, and especially Scotland.
Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Whither the British Poodle?”
