Stardate 20020716.1838

(On Screen): It's been a great day for American Unilateralism.

Early on, France "warned" the US not to attempt to try Zacarias Moussaoui (a French citizen) on any capital charge. Today, a Grand Jury issued new indictments which alleged "aggravating circumstances", which are required for the prosecutors to try for the death penalty. (The Germans "warned" against it, too.)

The Russian Defense Minister said that Russia would oppose any military action against Iraq. (Iraq owes Russia billions of dollars for arms provided on credit, money that Russia would love to collect some day.) The Archbishop of Wales (widely believed to be on the inside track to become the next Archbishop of Canterbury) says that plans to attack Iraq are immoral. Exiled Iraqi army officers asked (begged, more like) the US to find some way short of full attack to topple Saddam.

But Tony Blair, who seems to be better than anyone else on the other side of the pond at reading the writing on the wall, says that military action may be unavoidable. In the mean time, there's good reason to believe that American plans and preparations for operations against Iraq are continuing apace.

Our good friends in Europe still insist that everyone has to deal with Arafat. But there's no sign of the new Bush policy regarding him weakening, and his most recent letter to the US demanding that the US press Israel for concessions was not answered. The Europeans can talk to Arafat all they want, but everyone knows that without American support, any proposal for the region is dead on arrival. This report says that "the US failed to sway" the EU and Arabs against Arafat, but the reality is that what they think doesn't matter. What's critical is that they didn't sway us.

So the US continues to blaze its own trail, and this is good.

I don't think that unilateralism is good as an end in itself. Equally, I don't think that multilateralism is good as an end in itself (though some in Europe seem to). What I think is important is enlightened self interest. But even more important is that it is important for leaders in many places to stop thinking of the US as their servant, or vassal, or their god-child to give patronizing advice to. As strange as it may seem, too many heads of state in the world think of themselves as talking down to American leaders even in the face of the clear fact that we're the most powerful nation there is economically and militarily. (They somehow cherish the idea that they are in some way our superiors in wisdom and experience and sophistication and blah-blah-blah. We're powerful but stupid; we need the guidance of our elders.)

Russia's Defense Minister, Sergei Ivanov, said:

Russia will oppose any unilateral military action undertaken against Iraq without the approval of the United Nations Security Council.

Archbishop Williams said:

It is our considered view that an attack on Iraq would be both immoral and illegal and that eradicating the dangers posed by malevolent dictators and terrorists can be achieved only by tackling the root causes of the disputes.

Whether they are correct about this specific issue, they are wrong about a more fundamental one. They, and everyone else whose nose has been getting pushed in by the Bush administration's unilateralism, have somehow gotten it into their heads that we Americans are not permitted to ever do anything without asking our parents for permission. (It's never really been obvious where that idea came from. Perhaps it's just habit, or maybe it's arrogance.)

The reason I'm cheering for unilateralism is that it's time for the world to start asking us what we want to do, instead of peremptorily telling us what they want us to do. The right way to respond to rude suggestions is to ignore them, and the right way to deal with busybodies is to make it clear that you don't care what they think.

I could tell Archbishop Williams that I think he should shave off his beard and dye his hair purple, but I have no right to insist on it, and if I actually told him that to his face he'd think I was impudent. And he'd be right. But it hasn't yet sunk in around the world that their attempts to tell us what to do are equally impudent.

It's time for the world's leaders to stop lecturing us, as if we were misbehaving children.