UPDATED:  AUG 26, 2007

After Blair (4) 

At the conclusion of my last column (12. August) I reported  that Prime Minister Gordon Brown had agreed (without parliamentary approval and in breach of an earlier promise that time would be allocated for a debate in the House of Commons) to grant President Bush the use of Menwith Hill, a listening post in Yorkshire, for his ‘missile defence system’.  I concluded that, despite Brown’s claim that he would respect and strengthen parliamentary sovereignty, we should be very sceptical of such promises. In this respect, despite a change in the style of his leadership, he was likely to follow much the same course as Blair. This applies particularly to Britain’s relations with the United States. 

During his recent visit to Washington, Brown described himself as an ‘Atlanticist’.  In case the White House may have entertained any suspicion that he was about to detach the U.K. from Bush’s warm embrace, the prime minister reassured his hosts that the alliance with the U.S. remained as strong as ever, the bedrock of Britain’s foreign policy. Like Blair before him – albeit without his predecessor’s unctuous sycophancy towards his closest ally – Brown treats the ‘Atlantic Alliance’ as an article of faith, about which there can be no room for debate. Most political commentators accept this although it is widely acknowledged that Blair’s decision to hitch Britain to Bush’s Iraq war-wagon was disastrous for this country’s national interest. As is the case throughout most of Europe, Bush is deeply unpopular in Britain, and, after 2003, Blair’s support haemorrhaged due largely to his association with Bush. Cartoonists caricatured him as “Bush’s poodle” and this is how the public came to regard him.  

Brown’s electoral prospects in 2008, or whenever he decides to call an election, will depend largely on how successfully he appears to disassociate himself from Blair’s record. This is particularly important with regard to Iraq. Pressure is mounting for a complete withdrawal of the 5.500 British troops who remain under virtual siege in the Basra area. Public opinion, always against the war, is strongly in favour of the complete withdrawal of British forces from Iraq. Now, top generals are telling the government that the army has, in effect, failed in its ‘mission’ and should be withdrawn without delay. The head of the army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, has been saying for some time that, with the deployment in Afghanistan and Iraq, British forces are so overstretched that they are near breaking point. With steadily mounting casualties in both arenas, the problem for Brown is how to pull the army out of Iraq (which would be very popular with Labour Party members and the wider public) without appearing to renege on his commitment to Bush.  

In 2003 Blair could have led a European ‘coalition of the unwilling’, including the governments of France and Germany, with the support of millions throughout Europe and the world, against Bush’s invasion of Iraq. He chose instead to partner Bush in the infamous ‘coalition of the willing’ and embark upon an illegal war with all the foreseeable disastrous consequences that are now upon us. Brown is likely to announce a British withdrawal from Iraq in October. He has found a formula which may enable him to do this while avoiding the appearance of betraying his closest ally. At Camp David he reassured Bush that the decision to ‘hand over security’ to the Iraqis in Basra province would be made by the military commanders on the ground. This was an astute move because it is precisely what Bush is saying about the future deployment of US forces. Brown knows, of course, that US General Petraeus, when he gives his assessment of the results of  Bush’s escalation of force (the surge) in the Baghdad area, will not admit that the ‘mission’ has failed. It may be confidently predicted that Petraeus will argue that the ‘surge’ should be given more time to work. Brown knows that British generals want the army out of Iraq soon. They are saying so openly. This does not please the Bush administration which now has more troops in Iraq than ever. What impact a British withdrawal will have on US public opinion remains to be seen. But the architects of ‘the surge’ must be worried about their supply lines from Kuwait when the British withdraw. All this can only add to Bush’s headaches, particularly now that he has lost his brain – Karl Rove. 

However, a British withdrawal from Iraq will do little damage to the ‘special relationship’ with the United States. The military commanders who regard Iraq as a lost cause are keen to reinforce the British presence in Afghanistan. With little evidence to support them they seem to think that the war against the Taliban is winnable. To less blinkered observers with a passing knowledge of the history of foreign interventions in Afghanistan, the transfer of troops from Basra to Helmand province seems rather like exchanging the frying pan for the fire. President Putin may be forgiven a wry smile as he witnesses the quagmire into which British and U.S. NATO forces are sinking. The Taliban are the natural successors to the Islamist terrorist Mujahedin, who were nurtured, armed and backed by the U.S. and Pakistan against the Soviets in the 1980s. Now Frankenstein’s monster has turned against his masters. The British generals reckon that it will take ten years to subdue the Taliban. That’s how long the Russians were bogged down in Afghanistan. Their Anglo-American successors seem to have forgotten that they did not emerge victorious.  

British politicians and military leaders these days do not seem to read history. If they did they might be haunted by ghosts from a more distant past. The first British attempt to conquer Afghanistan was prompted in the 1830s by fears of Russian penetration of Central Asia. British forces deposed the Amir and replaced him with a puppet backed by an occupation army of 15.000. In 1842 a tribal rising forced the British army to abandon Kabul. In its retreat over the mountains it was surrounded and completely destroyed. This was the first time a large British force had been defeated. The myth of European invincibility was shattered, though it was to take another hundred years before the sun finally set on the British Empire. But in the sixty years since then, one sometimes wonders how much has been learned from history. 

In reflecting on such things, it is of some interest to consider whether or not post-imperial delusions of British power and military strength continue to play a part in foreign policy decisions of the kind that led to Blair’s interventionist wars. Likewise, it is worth considering how far misperceptions about Britain’s strength and influence and a misplaced desire to play a global role beyond their capacity, may have led British political leaders to cling so doggedly to the ‘special relationship’ with the United States. It is with questions such as this that I want to conclude this week’s column. I shall explore them in more detail in relation to contemporary events next time. For the moment, just a few preliminary observations are in order. 

What is meant by the term ‘Atlanticism’?  In so far as one may relate it to a specific time and event, it dates from the meeting between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill on board the USS Augusta in Placenta Bay, Newfoundland, on August 9. 1941. This meeting, which gave rise to the Atlantic Charter, took place nearly two years into World War Two. Britain had stood alone against Nazi Germany from the defeat of France in July 1940 until the German invasion of June 1941 brought the Soviet Union into the war as an ally. The U.S. was still uninvolved in hostilities, though Roosevelt made no secret of his support for Britain and Russia. The Lend Lease agreement was already in place. This was not as magnanimous a gesture as it may have seemed as it necessitated a cut back in British exports, making the country dependent economically on the U.S. As J.M. Keynes said, “We threw good housekeeping to the wind, but we saved the world.” Well, with a little help from the Russians perhaps.  

The irony is that Churchill, the last of the great imperialist statesmen, was more responsible than any other for subordinating Britain to the United States. In this, perhaps he had no choice.  But he also believed that by resisting Nazi aggression in alliance with the U.S. he could preserve the British Empire. In this belief, he was mistaken. The symbolism of the Placenta Bay meeting is striking. Churchill had been compelled to lease the Bay itself to the U.S. a year before. He had arrived there on board HMS Prince of Wales, but transferred to the Augusta to meet the President. As he clambered aboard, Roosevelt’s adviser, Harry Hopkins, remarked: “You’d have thought he was being carried up into the heavens to meet God.”

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Last Update: 10/06/2007