The Aftermath of the War: The View from London

April 23, 2003
A Conversation with Lord Black of Crossharbour

Q:  Has British Prime Minister Tony Blair paid a price for his support of the United States during the Iraq crisis, and could this inhibit future British support when the United States confronts other "rogue states" such as North Korea or Iran ?  

A:  No, the Prime Minister's political standing is higher than it has ever been.  He was extremely courageous in the run-up to the action in Iraq and he has been completely vindicated.  I think that his own parliamentary party will be much more cautious about challenging him than they were before.  So I would say that he has got all the leeway that he needs to do anything reasonable, but each case has to be examined on its own merits.  Obviously, we all hope that it does not come down to a military showdown with anybody else.  But if it does seem that another state is engaged in completely provoking behavior in a manner, as did Iraq , that rouses real national security concerns in Britain , in that event he would be fine.  I think that the Prime Minister now has a very strong mandate.  The country and his party and the official opposition would be very inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.  He is, of course, fundamentally a man of peace and he'll do anything he can to prevent a situation from ending in to war, as he tried in the Iraq case.  

Q:  Geoffrey Kemp notes in this week's issue that American credibility is at stake, that if evidence of weapons of mass destruction is not found in Iraq , then Washington will be accused of "crying wolf" and its allegations vis-à-vis Iran or North Korea may not be accepted at face value.  How do you think the British public would react to allegations about suspected production of weapons of mass destruction, say in Syria or Iran or North Korea , if there is no conclusive proof of WMD in Iraq ?  

A:  If I may take the liberty and speak for American opinion too--in the first place, we will probably obtain all we need to satisfy any credibility questions in respect to Iraq .  I think that when we have interviewed the scientists it will be clear that they had some sort of a program underway, even if it was skillfully hidden or partially destroyed or largely evacuated.  In the second place, in the case of Iran and North Korea the evidence is so overwhelming--these regimes have been comparatively forthright about their ambitions in these regards, and so presenting evidence will not prove to be much of an issue. I think the North Koreans have been pretty explicit about the fact that they have nuclear weapons.  We should not also forget that, unlike Iraq --a country that was subject to a number of prohibitions on what it could purchase--this has not been the case for these other countries.  

I think that the Iraqi experience has heightened the credibility of the British and American leaders--not diminished it.  

Q:  How permanent is the rift that developed between Britain and its leading partners in Europe , France and Germany , over Iraq ?  Is the breach repairable?  

A:  It all really depends on the response of the French and the Germans.  

With the French we have their traditional effort, with ample Gaullist precedent, of professing to be ultimately a friend of the British and Americans but in practice spending 95 percent of their energies undermining the British and Americans and opposing them.  I am not saying that when it is a real foul-weather issue, a real matter of urgent principle--the example always cited is the Cuban Missile Crisis--the French aren't reliable allies. But I think there will be a powerful argument generated from Washington, one to which Britain will be inclined to attach some credence also--that if the French want to be regarded as an ally they have to be a little less ambiguous in their conduct.  

In the Anglo-French case there is the particular issue of the attempts President Chirac made to undercut Blair in the eyes of his own partisans, to undermine his position within his own party in parliament. I think the state of relations between the British and French governments is actually really quite poor now as a result.  

So how the relationship is rebuilt between London and Paris depends to a great extent on how the French respond.  If they go on as the ostentatious head of an alternate group, to be some sort of counterweight to American or, as they put it, "Anglo-Saxon" influence in the world, then the British will continue to work with other powers within the EU and the European part of NATO to maintain a strong position, outside the French orbit.  I think they would be successful as they were in the Gulf War.  It is the traditional role of Pitt the Younger.  There is considerable resentment in the EU and the European part of NATO against the hegemony of the Paris and Berlin tandem and Blair could go on playing that quite successfully--if that is what French recalcitrance obliges him to do.  He certainly would be amenable, and so would the British foreign policy establishment, to a full reconciliation with France .  This will require, however, more than a state dinner and a handshake for the cameras.  The French are going to have to give some comfort that they will behave as friends and not make the occasional friendly noises while acting as enemies.  

The German situation is easily distinguishable.  There, I don't think it is a question of skullduggery.  It is a question of a unique German psychodrama, the latest installment in this long process of emancipating themselves from the guilt they feel for the enormities committed by the German regime in the 1930s and 1940s.  It is an ostentatious relentless pacifism coupled with the sense that they too were victims in World War II.  Back then, the Germans were an advanced warrior nation leading the world at a time when war was more in fashion.   Germany today is now the supreme pacifist nation at a time when they think pacifism is in fashion.  This is a manifestation, I think, of that lack of balance in German public policy that has constantly worried foreigners and constantly worried thoughtful Germans including Helmut Kohl.  You recall it was he who adopted the slogan "a European Germany, not a German Europe"--in part because he did have some concerns about Germany 's maturity in foreign policy matters.  That is not a euphemism for anyone imagining that Germany suddenly might become belligerent, but it is the latest installment on the strange progress Germany has made in its attitudes in its post-reunification phase, where it is now the most pacifistic of all major countries.   

And now the Germans have combined this pacifism with a sense that the Americans tend to be a bit too belligerent and therefore they must be resisted.  I think that the Germans simply have to work this sentiment through their system.  The United States is the only ally Germany has ever had going back to 1871 that has been of any use to them, and they should seize the lesson in that fact.  

Q:  What is the future of the "European project" in the aftermath of the second Gulf War?  Has the notion of a common European foreign and defense policy been discredited, both in Britain but also in Europe generally?  

A:  In Britain there was not much of a consensus for the European project before the war.  The polls all showed over 70 percent of Britons voting against monetary union.  As a result, the latest wheeze of the government was that they would not hold any sort of referendum on monetary union anytime soon.  The government, however, did believe that they could ratify Giscard d'Estaing's new European Constitution without a referendum, i. e., just by a party-line vote, utilizing party discipline in Parliament.  If they try to proceed with that--an act that really hands responsibility for defense and foreign policy to a non-British authority--this will unleash a huge political controversy in Britain over whether they have the right to do that, just on a straight party line vote in Parliament. As if they were voting an annual budget rather than a massive transfusion of sovereignty of the country to foreigners, albeit foreigners with whom they are closely associated.  

If we look at public opinion, we find that there are increased reservations rather than diminished ones given that public opinion in the European countries Britain knows best were quite hostile to the Anglo-American enterprise in Iraq (even if British opinion itself was, till quite late on).  Now, however, the general view is, regardless of how tangible the rewards for the search for weapons of mass destruction may be, that the war was a good thing to do.  The casualties, while regrettable, were slight--not only the allied side but relatively slight on the Iraqi side as well.  There wasn't huge unrest or tremendous environmental damage, there wasn't upheaval in the Arab world; a terrible man is gone and the prospect for creating something desirable in the Middle East is increased as a result.  (Although I would caution that now you have to win the peace, and we haven't done that yet.) 

I would say that given the attitude of the French--that they were prepared to veto any recourse to force, no matter what the reason--and the attitude of the Germans (in distinction to that of the Italians and the Spanish), because of all of this, I think the British would be more reticent to endorse a common European policy.  

For Europe as a whole, I don't feel I have the standing to comment, but I would point out that there is a feeling that while the idea of a more federal Europe is a good and desirable thing, the implementation has to be approached with caution.  This whole issue of whether the purpose of a united Europe is to be a rival to the United States , or a stronger Europe standing in alliance with the United States is one that has to be clarified.  I suspect that there is a reflex response that because the United States is so strong, that it is good thing if it doesn't have all the power and if there is someone else able to project influence apart from it in the world.  It is also the case that the United States is a country fundamentally friendly to Europe and not one that the Europeans want to antagonize needlessly.  

Conrad (Lord) Black is chairman of Hollinger International Inc. and serves as chairman of the editorial board of The National Interest.