Not the catchiest heading I've ever written, but I felt uncomfortable writing (or at least beginning) with anything too flippant on the five year anniversary of 9/11.
David Cameron, however, has marked the occasion with a speech in which he distances his Conservatives from the "failures" of neo-con foreign policy, while outlining his own vision of a "liberal conservative" one.
According to the FT he 'hit out' with an 'outspoken attack'. The Times has him in a 'clash' with Baroness Thatcher.
Given the hyperbolic use of nouns in (even broadsheet) news reporting you might be forgiven for thinking that Cameron showed the sensitivity of a Chelsea footballer, calling Bush a cunt before wiping his arse on the stars and stripes.
This is not the case. Indeed, I strongly recommend reading the whole speech, which you can find here.
I think it's quite a clever speech. It looks like he's laying the groundwork for a post-Bush White House (which of course there will be in 2008). Regardless of whether the new occupant is a Democrat or a Republican there will no doubt be some degree of distancing from the Bush strategy. It also struck me that the speech potentially outflanks Gordon Brown, staking out the 'I'd do things differently' ground before he gets there. (Though it's very much worth reading the Fink's analysis, which is is essentially that he denies being a neo-con while supporting neo-con policies.) And the bit that really tickled me (purely as a close reader) was the bit in which he implied that the Conservatives were the only ones who really 'got' the special relationship, that they were the traditional custodians of it and that Tony Blair (and New Labour) were too inexperienced and were generally ballsing it all up. (DC's chosen metaphor is the diffenece between old and new friends.) I also liked his apparent repudiation of democracy as an end in itself.
Of course, there are things I don't like - I wasn't thrilled with the word 'disproportionate' popping up again (though I'll give him that Israeli air strikes may not have been the best strategy - that particular debate goes on elsewhere.) Also his use of the 'junior partner' metaphor seems curiously unironic. I believe (though can't cite a reliable source) that it was orginally a slightly more rueful phrase and certainly a post-war one. I'm not sure it is correct to apply it to Churchill / Roosevelt (or for that matter Thatcher / Reagan).
This would be the point where I would ordinarily sum up and offer some form of conclusion. But I don't really have one. I thought it was a good speech overall with a decent grasp of some of the challenges. What he would do (or would have done) differently I'm not sure.
2 comments:
I think Dan's right, Cameron has made a clever speech. One which re-affirms a neo conservative foreign policy while distancing himself from Bush and Blair’s strategy (although, Cameron is fortunate to have the benefit of hindsight).
I agree with the stuff about not rushing democracy but building the foundations of a liberal society first (Rule of law, free economy etc). Most people seem to agree that mistakes were made in this area.
BUT… despite being a more subtle speech than the papers reported, I’d still question its timing. Cameron is a clever guy (and Ex PR man) he knows how the papers would be tempted to report this speech on 9/11.
Talking of the press, the Baroness Thatcher ‘clash’ looks like it was hyped by the papers (she doesn’t appear to mention Cameron or his speech). I did like her statement though: "This heinous attack upon America was an attack upon us all. With America, Britain stands in the front line against Islamist fanatics who hate our beliefs, our liberties and our citizens. We must not falter. We must not fail."
Interesting. According to this, the Labour Govt's foreign policy does not recognise that Britain even has a national interest to defend.
Ooh, that David Miliband, he’ll scratch your eyes out
The Sunday Times
Comment
Dominic Lawson
January 3, 2010
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The government’s decision to make such a public attempt to persuade the Chinese to intervene provides a most instructive illustration of the flawed nature of new Labour’s conception of what foreign policy should be. For the fascinating aspect of our reprimand to the Chinese ambassador was that we did not complain that a Briton had been treated in a way that no Briton should, instead that China had “failed in its basic human rights responsibilities”. This has nothing to do with defending British interests, but everything to do with the notion that the objective of our foreign policy should be to advance the entire planet towards a state of grace and enlightenment roughly similar to that existing in Islington or Hampstead.
… This was made excruciatingly clear by the British ambassador to Washington at the time, Sir Christopher Meyer, in his evidence to the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war. Meyer said Blair consistently failed to pursue British interests in his dealings with Bush, even to the extent of failing to exert any pressure on the US president to give the British exemption from (illegal) steel tariffs, imposed at the same time as Bush was seeking our support for his plans to remove Saddam Hussein.
As papers released last week by the National Archives demonstrate, the contrast with Margaret Thatcher’s way of dealing with the US could not have been starker. Despite the closeness of her political bond with Ronald Reagan, she was single-minded in defending purely British interests even when they clashed with Reagan’s most cherished policies.
For example, she waged a ferocious behind-the-scenes battle against US plans to penalise companies — such as Rolls-Royce — supplying equipment for a Soviet gas pipeline from Siberia to western Europe. … Two months later, the US abandoned the idea of sanctions against the Siberian pipeline contractors.
When I asked Meyer last week why it was that the new Labour government had been so unwilling to press the British national interest in its negotiations with Bush, he replied that it thought the whole idea of the national interest was “passé”. To put it most charitably, new Labour believed that in a “globalised” world, foreign policy could no longer be about anything other than “global” issues — and that Britain should be a leader in promulgating the appropriate “global” policies.
Hence its long-standing obsession with being the “leader in the battle against climate change” — a presumption that met a devastating rebuff in Copenhagen last month, when it was brought home to the government what a colossal exercise in vanity and hubris this was on its part: surprise! China, India, Brazil, South Africa — make your own list — will not be lectured on their responsibilities to their own generations as yet unborn by affluent, middle-class eco-moralists from Whitehall.
The most telling critique of this delusional foreign policy comes in regular instalments in the form of a blog by the former British ambassador to Poland, Charles Crawford. It’s called CharlesCrawford.biz and if you want to know just how much in despair many of our diplomats are, this is the place to look. In a recent dispatch, Crawford lamented: “Who gives the impression of thinking that power exists, and is there to be deployed in the national interest? Or having any national interest at all?”
One would hope that the Conservative party is taking Crawford’s advice but there is not much sign of it. There was silence from the Tory front bench about the government’s Copenhagen delusions — mainly because David Cameron shared them down to the last detail.
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