February 20, 2003 5:54 AM

A little something for everyone

No applause for French of Bush team

Thomas Friedman examines why everyone in the Iraq debate could benefit from a trip to the woodshed. While the French apparently have learned nothing from Neville Chamberlain, the Shrub Administration has learned about as much from the first Bush Administration.

As I was listening to the French foreign minister make his case at the United Nations for giving Saddam Hussein more time to comply, I was struck by the number of people in the Security Council chamber who applauded. I wish there were someone I could applaud for.

Sorry, I can't applaud the French foreign minister, because I do not believe that France, which sold Saddam his first nuclear reactor, the one Israel blew up, comes to this story with the lofty principles it claims. The French foreign minister, after basking in the applause at the United Nations, might ask himself who was clapping for his speech back in Baghdad, Iraq, and who was crying. Saddam was clapping, and all his political prisoners -- i.e., most Iraqis -- were crying.

But I don't have much applause in me for China, Russia -- or the Bush team either. I feel lately as if there are no adults in this room (except Tony Blair). No, this is not a plague-on-all-your-houses column. I side with those who believe we need to confront Saddam -- but we have to do it right, with allies and staying power, and the Bush team has bungled that.

The Bush folks are big on attitude, weak on strategy and terrible at diplomacy. I covered the first Persian Gulf War, in 1990-91. What I remember most are the seven trips I took with Secretary of State James A. Baker III around the world to watch him build -- face-to-face -- the coalition and public support for that war, before a shot was fired. Going to someone else's country is a sign you respect his opinion. This Bush team has done no such hands-on spade work. Its members think diplomacy is a phone call.

They don't like to travel. Seeing senior Bush officials abroad for any length of time has become like rare-bird sightings. It's probably because they spend so much time infighting in Washington over policy, they're each afraid that if they leave town their opponents will change the locks on their office doors.

This Administration seems to be hanging it's hat on selling war to a public whose attention span is more often occupied with the likes of "The Bachelorette" or "Joe Millionaire". The Left is convinced this war is about Big Oil, the Right is convinced it's a battle against Evil Incarnate, and the Center doesn't know who to believe. Shrub's minions have done a spectacularly poor job of selling the American public on why going to war against Iraq is the right and proper thing to do. There is a case to be made, but it seems that the Administration has decided to rely on Shrub's "Trust me, I'm Presidentiary" approach. Well, you can fool some of the people some of the time....

As for the French, it would seem that someone is raging against the dying of the light, and to no avail. Jacque Chirac's value as anything but an irritant has been highly overrated. In order to salve French egos, the US and the rest of the West has allowed France to maintain the illusion that they are still a world power. The result of this has been a government with an inflated sense of their own importance and capabilities. Not to mention a degree of arrogance that only the French are capable of.

Say what you will, but at least George the Older understood how to build a coalition and get that coalition moving in the same direction. He knew that cooperation meant stroking egos. His son seems to have forgotten his father's example. He has a case to make that is every bit as strong as his father's, but he has thus far dropped the ball when it comes to convincing the majority of the American public of that. As for the French...ah, why even bother??

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on February 20, 2003 5:54 AM.

Power corrupts, but absolute power, is, well, kinda fun was the previous entry in this blog.

Life in a bubble is the next entry in this blog.

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