WASHINGTON -- When
the Democratic presidential candidates pause from beating Hillary with
a stick, they join in unison to pronounce the Democratic pieties,
chief among which is that George Bush has left our alliances in ruins.
As Clinton puts it, we have "alienated our friends," must
"rebuild our alliances" and "restore our standing in
the world." That's mild. The others describe Bush as having a
scorched-earth foreign policy that has left us reviled and isolated in
the world.
Like Nancy Pelosi and
Harry Reid, who insist that nothing of significance has changed in
Iraq, the Democrats are living in what Bob Woodward would call a state
of denial. Do they not notice anything?
France has a new
president who is breaking not just with the anti-Americanism of the
Chirac era but with 50 years of Fifth Republic orthodoxy that defined
French greatness as operating in counterpoise to America. Nicolas
Sarkozy's trip last week to the United States was marked by a highly
successful White House visit and a rousing speech to Congress in which
he not only called America "the greatest nation in the
world" (how many leaders of any country say that about
another?) but pledged solidarity with the U.S. on Afghanistan, Iran,
Lebanon, the Middle East and nuclear nonproliferation. This just a few
months after he sent his foreign minister to Iraq to signal an
openness to cooperation and an end to Chirac's reflexive
obstructionism.
That's France. In
Germany, Gerhard Schroeder is long gone, voted out of office and into
a cozy retirement as Putin's concubine at Gazprom. His successor is
the decidedly pro-American Angela Merkel, who concluded an unusually
warm visit with Bush this week.
All this, beyond the
ken of Democrats, is duly noted by new British Prime Minister Gordon
Brown, who in an interview with Sky News on Sunday noted "the
great change that is taking place," namely "that France and
Germany and the European Union are also moving more closely with
America."
As for our other
traditional alliances, relations with Australia are very close, and
Canada has shown remarkable steadfastness in taking disproportionate
casualties in supporting the NATO mission in Afghanistan. Eastern
European nations, traditionally friendly, are taking considerable
risks on behalf of their U.S. alliance -- for example, cooperating
with us on missile defense in the face of enormous Russian pressure.
And ties with Japan have never been stronger, with Tokyo increasingly
undertaking military and quasi-military obligations that it had
forsworn for the last half-century.
So much for the
disarray of our alliances.
The critics will say
that all this is simply attributable to the rise of Russia and China
causing old allies to turn back to us out of need.
So? I would even add
that the looming prospect of a nuclear Iran has caused Arab states --
Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, even Libya --
to rally to us. All true. And it makes the point that the Bush critics
have missed for years -- that the strength of alliances is heavily
dependent on the objective balance of international forces, and has
very little to do with the syntax of the U.S. president or the disdain
in which he might be held by a country's cultural elites.
It's classic
balance-of-power theory: Weaker nations turn to the great outside
power to help them balance a rising regional threat. Allies are not
sentimental about their associations. It is not a matter of affection,
but of need -- and of the great power's ability to deliver.
What's changed in the
last year? Bush's dress and diction remain the same. But he did change
generals -- and counterinsurgency strategy -- in Iraq. As a result,
Iraq has gone from an apparently lost cause to a winnable one.
The rise of external
threats to our allies has concentrated their minds on the need for the
American connection. The revival of American fortunes in Iraq -- and
the diminished prospect of an American rout -- have significantly
increased the value of such a connection. This is particularly true
among our moderate Arab allies who see us as their ultimate protection
against an Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Hamas axis that openly threatens them
all.
It's always
uncomfortable for a small power to rely on a hegemon. But a hegemon on
the run is even worse. Alliances are always shifting. But one thing we
can say with certainty: The event that will have more effect than any
other on the strength of our alliances worldwide is not another Karen
Hughes outreach to the Muslim world, not an ostentatious embrace of
Kyoto, or even the most abject embrace of internationalism from the
podium of the UN. It is success or failure in Iraq.
Charles
Krauthammer is a 1987 Pulitzer Prize winner, 1984 National Magazine
Award winner, and a columnist for The Washington Post since 1985.
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