My friend Michael Ledeen may be a little too gloomy about the future of Franco-American relations, but he’s right to note how this crisis is spawning some very old phenomena. It’s long been a dictum of “realist” foreign policy analysis that shortly after one great power arises, another just as surely emerges to counter-balance it. In the past, that has meant militarily – but it could also be expressed diplomatically. Since the end of the Cold War, realists have been waiting for this to happen, but couldn’t see how. China is still too militarily weak. Terrorist Islam operates on an asymmetrical level, but, as we saw in Afghanistan, it’s still vulnerable to conventional military superiority. But if combined with the diplomatic and economic clout of the fading Euro-Asian powers – France, Germany and Russia – it could still manage some kind of balance. That, perhaps, is what is happening now. But, of course, these old powers are riding a terrible tiger in Islamist terror, hoping it will eat them last, terrified it is actually in a stronger position to devour them first. The counter-balancing alliance is therefore real but also terribly fragile. Certainly far more fragile than the shared values and military power of the Anglosphere. I think we should think of this riveting period as a time when new alliances are being tested for future use. Some might work; others won’t. But that makes it all the more important to keep our nerve and make this war so successful it deters such potential hostile alliances from taking root.
HITCH ON THE POPE: I laughed out loud several times reading Hitch’s latest. Money quote:
One wonders what it would take for the Vatican to condemn Saddam’s regime. Baathism consecrates an entire country to the worship of a single human being. Its dictator has mosques named after himself. I’m not the expert on piety, but isn’t there something blasphemous about this from an Islamic as well as a Christian viewpoint? I suppose if Saddam came out for partial-birth abortions or the ordination of women or the acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle he might be hit with a condemnation of some sort.
He also homed in a wonderful piece of inanity from that most inane of creatures, Jimmy Carter: the term “substantially unilateral.” Why didn’t Howard Dean think of that?
SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “Quite probably the worst thing about the inevitable and totally unjustifiable war with Iraq is that there’s no chance the U.S. might lose it. America is a young country, and intellectually, emotionally, and physically, it has been exhibiting all the characteristics of an adolescent bully, a pubescent punk who’s too big for his britches and too strong for his age. Someday, perhaps, we may grow out of our mindless, pimple-faced arrogance, but in the meantime, it might do us a ton of good to have our butts kicked. Unfortunately, like most of the targets we pick on, Iraq is much too weak to give us the thrashing our continuously overbearing behavior deserves, while Saddam is even less deserving of victory than Bush.” – novelist Tom Robbins, Seattle Weekly.
The Dish 