Thread: Boyd on AQ
View Single Post
Old 08-02-2004, 20:24   #6
Airbornelawyer
Moderator
 
Airbornelawyer's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,954
Even as far as the relationship has sunk in the past decade plus (well before GWB's election), France is far more of an ally than Russia.

As for the sentence that started this - "America has been physically isolated from many of its allies due to its rush to war in Iraq" - whoever writes that blog is not really worth of my time. The "rush to war" is a tried trope. And to the extent there is isolation, it is just as much the choice of those allies to isolate themselves from us. These formulations have little to do with rationally addressing geopolitical realities, and more to do with finding some way to shift blame back on us. We sought international support, making our greatest tactical error in the process.* The French and German governments chose the company of Russia, a semi-dictatorship, and China, an actual dictoatorship, over that of the world's leading democracies. They chose to isolate themselves from us, not the other way around. And even if we are politically isolated from "many of [our] allies," how exactly are we physically isolated?

In Iraq, we have the support of a majority of the G-7, the world's leading advanced economies, a majority of our formal allies (NATO, ANZUS, major non-NATO allies), a majority of the world's advanced economies, and even, at one point, a majority of European countries. Even many countries outwardly critical, like various Arab states, provided material support.

In any event, having allies is not an end unto itself. Had we abandoned what we felt was necessary, we probably could have gotten lots more allies and done absolutely nothing. The Desert Storm coalition was nice and broad, but to get all those Arab countries on board we had to promise a return to the status quo ante - no overthrowing Saddam and no upsetting the dictatorial/monarchic apple cart.

_____
* The tactical error was that in going to the UN, we rested the main (but not the entire) case for regime change on Iraqi violations of UN resolutions related to WMDs. The WMD threat was just one component of the casus belli, and actual stockpiles of weapons systems were just one component of the WMD threat (and, frankly, not the most important).
Airbornelawyer is offline   Reply With Quote