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First published in the Financial Times - 14 February
2003
Sir, I read with mounting disbelief the view of your
normally sensible columnist Philip Stephens ("Learning to live in
a world governed by American rules", February 7) that we had all
better now understand that in global politics "America makes the
rules" - and the rest of us should obey them. Mr Stephens echoes
here the governing view of Britain's foreign and military establishment
(and of Tony Blair). I know that many among this establishment have, over
the years, lost their self-confidence, but this, as they say, is ridiculous.
That Britain should become a colony of Washington, (even,
extremist, religious Washington), undignified though it may be, is not
the real issue. What is so sad about Mr Blair's status is that it is totally
unnecessary. For the fact is that we Europeans (the British included)
need the US much less than the US needs us. During the cold war we needed
the US for our security; but, now, apart from a reasonable trading relationship,
there is hardly anything that the US can add to our prosperity or our
security. By contrast, Washington needs Europe's support both for its
newly-proclaimed world mission and to shore up its own increasingly ambivalent
public opinion.
Should the Franco-German alliance hold up through this
coming Iraq crisis, Europe will have a critical mass on which to build
a European - and not an American - foreign policy. Such a European foreign
policy will not necessarily be "anti-American" in any fundamental
sense. It will simply put our own interests around the world ahead of
those of Washington. And, for a start, Europe will have no reason at all
to support Washington's bizarre, dangerous and somewhat unhinged attempt
to re-order the whole Middle East.
And as for Britain, we have a straight choice - to work
with France and Germany to create an independent European foreign and
security policy, or, alternatively, to fall in with the logic of Mr Stephen's
position, that we should become a province of the "American empire".
As our English forebears in North America might say
- "no taxation without representation", Mr Stephens!
Stephen Haseler is professor
of government at London Guildhall University and a member of the committee
of Federal Union. The opinions expressed
are those of the author and not necessarily those of Federal Union.
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