In the Times, Gerard Baker ponders the alarming comment made by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that that she thought the new European constitution, with its creation of a single foreign minister articulating a single foreign policy, was a good thing. According to Baker, this eye-popping remark -- so much against American interests, since the aim of the European superstate that the constitution is bringing into being is to be a rival and challenge to American hegemony -- came about because Tony Blair is playing devious politics to manipulate British public opinion:

'The word in Washington is that the British think it would be quite helpful if the US were to get on the EU constitution bandwagon to improve the chances of success in our referendum next year. Britain is arguing that a unified Europe would represent no threat to the US but would help it to achieve its foreign policy goals. Yet once again it seems that a combination of British naivety and misplaced confidence about its ability to control things European has infected the Government’s judgment. The real leaders of the EU — in Paris, Berlin and Brussels, are quite clear about where they want this newly united Europe to go, and it is not in London’s direction, still less Washington’s.

'There is growing confidence in Europe that the US can be persuaded, once the constitution is approved, to change the terms of transatlantic debate; to recognise the EU as the principal interlocutor on US-European relations and to abandon the outdated notion of nation states making their own foreign policy. A key element of this strategy is to encourage the US to abandon Nato as the principal forum for the discussion of transatlantic relations. As a genuinely multilateral body, Nato is an inconvenient obstacle to the EU’s superstate ambitions in foreign policy. Time to ditch it.'

As Baker also reports, however, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appears to have got the point since he refused to endorse the EU constitution and said Secretary Rice did not make US policy. Ouch.

Two things leap out from this little episode. Rice -- supposedly a tough nut -- seems to have already succumbed to the foreign policy establishment's version of Stockholm syndrome. And not for the first time (see the debacle over the Road Map and Arafat) Blair seems to have had a dangerously bad effect on American policymaking.

The very special relationship forged over Iraq has the distinct downside that the US administration -- or at least, part of it -- actually listens to him. This is bad news for all who wish to defend the nation state and the security of the world. Blair's support over Iraq was a blip. In the great global battle between democracy and transnational progressivism, Blair is on the wrong side. Washington, please note.

Posted by melanie at February 18, 2005