When the French call you arrogant, it’s sort of like Michael Jackson calling you eccentric.
Your first response is to marvel at the pot’s audacity in criticizing the kettle’s color scheme. France is, after all, the nation where condescension was born.
The problem is, they just may have a point. Certainly, the remarks that occasioned last week’s angry response from French leaders weren’t exactly a model of American decorum. It seems Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was asked at a news conference about European resistance to military action against Iraq.
Rumsfeld said, “You’re thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don’t. I think that’s old Europe. If you look at the entire NATO Europe today, the center of gravity is shifting to the east and there are a lot of new members.”
Martine Aubry, France’s former labor minister, was the one who called that comment arrogant. She told a radio audience that Rumsfeld’s dismissive remarks show that the United States means to “govern the world.”
Actually, what they show is that the Bush administration still has a tin ear where Iraq is concerned. Remember, it was also Rumsfeld who argued recently that failure to find evidence Iraq is stockpiling weapons of mass destruction could, in itself, be evidence Iraq is stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.
Not that I don’t take the secretary’s point. He’s saying we know the Iraqis have these weapons, so any failure to find them can only mean they’ve been hidden.
The question is, how do we know? It would be nice if we the people had just some of Washington’s certainty. At the very least, I wish more of our traditional allies – yes, “old Europe” – had it. It’s a wish that’s apparently shared by many people. American support for an Iraqi war is, according to pollsters, conditioned on international support for it. The consensus seems to be that we’d be a lot more comfortable with war if our allies vouched for its necessity.
We are, in a word, skeptical.
That skepticism is only sharpened by the transparent dichotomy in our treatment of North Korea, another recalcitrant member of the fabled axis of evil. We’ve played the drums of war for Saddam Hussein, but for Kim Jong Il we offer repeated choruses of “give peace a chance.”
Yes, the fact that the North Koreans are believed to possess nuclear arms explains that dichotomy – makes it prudent. But watching these crises unfold side by side still points up a certain unattractive flexibility of principle that does little to ameliorate skepticism.
Can America go to war lacking the support of its people and some of its key allies? Yes. But that would be dangerous and ill advised, risking upheaval at home and moral authority abroad. I don’t think the Bush administration fully appreciates this or anything else beyond its lust for war.
War, should it need to be said, is a terrible thing. It kills soldiers and children, innocents and innocence. It debases the human spirit. However, contrary to what many of those who marched in Washington and elsewhere Saturday before last would argue, there are times when that horror is necessary, even moral. A nation has the right – the OBLIGATION – to defend itself from aggression. Were there clear and convincing evidence that we are at that point, we could consider this a settled matter.
But any such evidence that may exist has not been – possibly cannot be – released for public consumption. So the case for war – for pre-emptively striking a sovereign nation – rests largely on the willingness of American allies to vouch for American accusations. In which case, it might be wise to offer those allies something other than stubborn unilateralism and, yes, a certain get-off-my-planet-by-sundown arrogance.
The administration keeps insisting on the necessity of war. It seems to expect that the American people and a dubious world should take it at its word.
And with every passing day that becomes a little more difficult to do.
Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for the Miami Herald. His e-mail address is: lpitts@herald.com.
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