Stardate 20040330.1633

(On Screen): Scott points out an article in the IHT:

Congress's leading Democratic voices on foreign policy, with a trace of the disdain that so rankles Europeans, suggested that their critical view of the European Union's weaknesses was intact, and that in puckering up for a November embrace Europe might have to settle for a formalistic kiss.

This may come as a surprise in Europe, where wide segments of opinion, official and public, confidential or boisterous, want Bush beaten. Many influential Europeans seem to believe that Senator John Kerry in a Democratic White House would restore both respectful equanimity to the American side of the trans-Atlantic relationship and, perhaps more naïvely, aim to redefine U.S. interests in a way that did not seem so self-interestedly American.

Pushed to the extreme, this might be called the European School for Reforming America. In this notion, a needy United States seeks out European counsel, converts to multilateralism and submits get-tough inclinations to the United Nations for the veto-ready muster of China, Russia and France. In the Rayburn Building's Gold Room, such tones were unmistakably absent from the remarks of Senator Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and of Representative Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee. At a seminar sponsored by the University of Michigan, Biden and Lantos were joined by Henry Hyde, the Republican chairman of the House committee, and Madeleine Albright, secretary of state under Bill Clinton, to talk about the European Union and the United States before a group that included the German and French ambassadors in Washington.

If the last two and a half years have done nothing else, they've exposed the breadth and depth of misapprehension around the world of Americans by non-Americans. bin Laden expected the US to drop to its knees and beg after 9/11, along the lines of what Spain did after 3/11. The Europeans expected the US to collapse in paroxysms of self-loathing and guilt for past misdeeds which were perceived (in Europe) as being the "root cause" of the attack. The Europeans also expected the US to be chastened, and to see this as nemesis leading from American unilateral hubris. They expected a new dedication to multilateralism.

Saddam thought that the French and Russians would be able to prevent America from invading Iraq. The "Arab Street" thought that America was fundamentally cowardly, and would never be willing to make the sacrifice in blood needed to truly fight and win a war. The Baathist insurgency in Iraq thought that a few weeks or at most months of ongoing attacks against American forces there would cause America to give up and pull out. The last 30 months has been one long tale of all the ways in which "the world" has proved how little they truly understand us.

And now it seems that the Europeans believe that if Kerry is elected then the nightmare will be over, and the long-delayed "respectful equanimity" between America and Europe would take place. Which is to say that America would finally come to its senses and acknowledge the superior wisdom and sophistication of the Europeans and start following Europe's lead.

As Vinocur says, they're bound to be disappointed. Among the many misapprehensions about America still held by the world, one of the most important is the assumption that Americans are mercurial; that we have short attention spans and little long term will to see things through.

I think one reason "the world" has been so bewildered and frustrated by us is their assumption that what they see in our popular culture, and the way we behave when we are not threatened, is somehow an indication of our true deep nature. We seem to squabble incessantly amongst ourselves about little things, so they assume that we are deeply divided and cannot unite against big challenges. We seem to seize on fads easily, and discard them for others just as readily, so they assume we cannot remain dedicated to long term projects. They see in our trashy entertainment preposterous triviality and banality, so they assume we have no deep important convictions or standards or values.

There's also a tendency in Europe to engage in projection, and to think of America as being Europe's child, a rebellious teenager. Once we Americans "grow up", we'll realize that they were right all along, but in the mean time this is just a phase that all children go through.

The evidence from history is that all these assumptions are false. They ignore that evidence; they explain it away by saying that America has changed. Even if the nation was willing to sacrifice 400,000 dead in WWII, that was then and this is now, and modern Americans are different.

So they discount the fact that America remained steadfast during the entire Cold War despite both parties electing Presidents during that interval. There were differences in style and approach towards how the Cold War should be handled, but never any doubt that it would be handled, no matter which party held the White House.

And they discount the degree to which our system maintains continuity of policy. Even if Kerry wins this year, there's still essentially no chance of the Democrats regaining control of the House, and that would mean that the Democrats would have to compromise on foreign policy even if they thought the way the Europeans somehow hope they do.

But they also discount the fact that, as the IHT article points out, the Democrats don't have any higher regard for European opinion than the Republicans do, and are no more enchanted by the Europeans as any kind of role model. The main difference between the parties when it comes to foreign policy is that the Democrats are willing to smile and nod at the Europeans before ignoring them, whereas the Republicans are more straightforward in expressing their disdain.

A different way to put that is that the Democrats are more willing to lie; the Republicans are more likely to tell the truth. There's less real difference between them in practice than the Europeans think.

The Kyoto accord is a perfect example of that. Clinton signed it. But before he did, and even before negotiations over the Kyoto treaty were completed, the Senate passed the Byrd-Hagel resolution. What that made clear was that the Senate would refuse to ratify the treaty unless it were drastically modified, and the modifications the Senate demanded would not have been even remotely acceptable to the Europeans or to other nations involved in the negotiations process.

Clinton signed the Kyoto accord as part of the process of smiling and nodding at the Europeans, but he never submitted it to the Senate for ratification and never intended to. He gave them the impression that he still thought it was a wonderful idea, and they held out hope that he might be biding his time until he thought there was a chance that it might be ratified.

Once Bush became President, one of his first acts was to publicly repudiate the Kyoto treaty and, more or less, "unsign" it. For that Bush has been excoriated internationally, as somehow being the one – and the only one – responsible for America not joining the Kyoto accord. Notably absent from that castigation was any mention of Byrd-Hagel, which killed Kyoto dead long before Bush became President. That's because Byrd-Hagel passed unanimously. Republican senators and Democratic senators both saw through the rhetoric and fully understood that the Kyoto accord really had nothing to do with "global warming". Its true purpose was to cripple the US economy through artificial imposition of energy shortages, and they had no intention of letting that happen.

Clinton knew full well that there was no chance of the Senate ever ratifying the Kyoto accord. So did Bush. The only real difference between them was that Bush was willing to say so publicly. Kyoto was not a Republican-versus-Democrat issue, it was an America-versus-Europe issue, and every member of the Senate voted in favor of Byrd-Hagel in order to say that they favored America.

And that's how it will be with the "War on Terror". Once the US invaded Iraq last year, the US was committed and the fundamental political climate was changed irreversibly. That was one of the reasons I thought it was so important, and why I was so nervous about the wrangling during the months before the tanks rolled across the border. Once the shooting started, on one level I felt a sense of relief because I knew that America's commitment to a strategy of inducing reform in the Arab world was no longer in doubt.

As I've written about how I thought we would continue handling the war, sometimes people would write and ask whether I was assuming the Republicans would win this year. My answer was that ultimately it didn't matter, because the Democrats would end up doing about the same thing. There might be political backbiting about how we ended up in Iraq in the first place, but no doubt at all about the fact that we had to finish what we'd started there.

Were Kerry to become president, the big change would be in manner and style, but there would be little change in substance. Kerry would willingly meet with European leaders, and speak to them in French, and then end up doing just about the same thing Bush will do when he gets reelected.

During the Cold War American policy changed again and again. Sometimes this was because of external events, and sometimes it was because the White House changed hands. But commitment to the Cold War never wavered from its beginning in 1948 until it's end in 1989. And it is likewise true that American commitment to "War on Terror" won't change, even if details of the policy on it are more fluid.

The Europeans liked Clinton because he seemed to be willing to be "multilateral". I have seen comments from Europe to the effect that if Kerry were elected then American policy would "once again reflect the true nature of America" i.e. America would go back to acting European. This assumes that Americans deep down agree with Europe and that the Bush administration is some sort of anomaly, a brief reversion to immature rebellion against Europe.

Unfortunately for them, the two terms of the Clinton presidency were the true anomaly. The 1990's were like a vacation from realpolitik. The Cold War was over, and no new threat comparable to the USSR seemed to loom, and there was something of an "end of history" feeling and more than a bit of complacence both in the US and in Europe. When you have no big problems, small problems seem to loom large, which is why Monica and Kyoto were big stories. And during the dot-com bubble, there was something of a party atmosphere.

Clinton was a party dude. With his shades and his saxophone, he was the right guy for the time. And he really became the life of the party when the Monica story broke. After 40 years of worrying about whether we might all die in nuclear armageddon, suddenly the worst problem we had was figuring out whose lips had been kissing the President, and what part of him they might have been kissing. With the Lewinsky scandal, America began wearing a lightshade at the party.

The party ended and the hangover started when the dot-com bubble burst. And after 9/11, the vacation ended for America. We don't generally sweat the little stuff, but we were once again facing big stuff. Our true deep nature once again came to the fore.

And so it was that again and again leaders in Europe and elsewhere around the world keep botching their dealings with us.

Few have botched it as badly as the AKP in Turkey. They won control over the Turkish government in January of 2003, and somehow became convinced that Turkish cooperation in preparations for the attack on Iraq were essential, thus that they could extort extraordinary concessions from us: vast amounts of money, lots of loans, and carte blanche to smash the Kurds flat. They also shopped around in Europe in hopes of inspiring a bidding war. In the end they deeply damaged Turkey's relationship with the US without gaining anything at all. We invaded Iraq without their help and won anyway.

Nonetheless, it has been European misapprehensions which have resulted in the most headlines and which will ultimately have the greatest political consequences. Last November, I wrote:

And it is that difference that continues to mystify and frustrate Europeans, who incorrectly assume that America is a European country, and who try to explain our behavior on that basis. And because our behavior is inexplicable for a European nation, they conclude that it is the result of foolishness and immaturity and lack of sophistication.

They come to those conclusions because that's the only way one can explain how a European country could act the way America has acted. What they miss is that America is not European, not at its deepest levels. It derives from European roots, and the majority of us are derived genetically from European stock, but it is utterly unlike Europe in the ways which matter most.

There have always been Europeans who understood us. Many were Americans who were born in the wrong place. Even some of their leaders understand us.

I think Tony Blair understands us, though he doesn't totally agree with us. But too many other European leaders have found us bewildering and infuriating, because they don't have the faintest clue about our true nature.

The people of France were apparently utterly surprised when American tourism fell off badly last summer. First, they seemed surprised that average Americans took offense at French political opposition. Second, they seemed surprised that average Americans would let that affect their decisions about vacation destinations.

You'd think that after two and a half years of "blows on the head" caused by their misapprehension, they'd begin to wonder whether we might be different than they had thought. But the forlorn hope that somehow a Kerry victory might lead to a new American renaissance and an end to the Bush dark ages shows that they still haven't figured it out.

If they assume that there will be some sort of cataclysmic shift in American foreign policy after a Kerry inauguration, then as Vinocur writes in the IHT article they'll be sadly disappointed. Even though I think there's little chance of Kerry winning, that's not an academic point. Another thing they're ignoring is the balance of American public opinion. Over the last year, despite events and rhetoric and foreign denunciation, polls have consistently shown that about three times as many Americans supported the effort in Iraq as opposed it.

Yes, we have our Howard Deans, and our Ralph Naders. There have been demonstrations against the war and constant denunciations of the administration. But in the end, even the Democrats are Americans first, Democrats second. (Although there are exceptions.)

So some Europeans continue to pound themselves on the head. (Apparently that feels better than stopping.) And they assume that Americans actually value European opinions:

The other pledge of support required much more subtlety, bearing as it did the mark of those in Europe who would cast Kerry as an American flagellant, ready for a virtual apology to all for America's size, strength, and national instincts. Before he was elected prime minister of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero said he was "aligning" himself with the Democrat. After Zapatero's victory and his statement that Spain would pull its troops out of Iraq if UN authorization was not forthcoming, Kerry was caught in the position of having to deal with a self-appointed European ally apparently clueless about American politics. Kerry urged Zapatero to reconsider on Iraq and said he should "send a message that terrorists cannot win by their acts of terror."

In fact, I can think of nothing more likely to guarantee a Bush victory than having Chirac and Schröder publicly endorse Kerry's candidacy.

At least Clotaire Rapaille understands that it would be poisonous, even as he belittles the reasons why.

In the wake of the US-led war on Iraq, which France opposed, the Democratic hopeful's command of the French language, plus his background in France and Switzerland, could be a real liability among US voters, he said.

"Forget the French connection," he advised.

"The French are thinkers - 'I think, therefore I am'. Americans want somebody who is going to take action. All this association of Kerry with thinking too much and nuance and five-sentence answers is off-code."

He added: "American culture is an adolescent culture... In America, you have to be the common man, be able to make people think you are the common man."

Rapaille, author of the forthcoming book "Archetypes of the President," specialises in psychoanalysing cultures. His expertise is sought out by major US corporations, and he's often interviewed in US media on mass culture.

Besides dropping the French connection, Rapaille suggested that Kerry take fewer holidays, start giving "one word or two" answers to questions - and do something about his wardrobe.

"Go to K-Mart, buy jeans and cowboy boots... Dress like you are going into a bar in Kansas to drink from the bottle," he said.

Or perhaps Queer Eye for the Straight Guy could help.

Why are they having such a hard time with this? Why don't they figure out what the problem is?

It's because too many of Europe's opinion makers are living in a delusional world anyway. They believe that raising taxes and increasing social spending doesn't stifle economic growth, and that labor laws which prevent layoffs increase employment. They think they can catch up to the US economically by 2010. They think all disagreements can be settled through negotiations and that no one needs or should have a military any longer. They think all citizens should rely on the state to protect them from criminals, and any who try to protect themselves should be punished.

They think they're still important, and they think that the world views them that way. Amidst that great sea of delusion, it's hardly surprising that they also think America is becoming more and more European as it finally grows up, and that deep down we admire them and want to be more like them.

So it won't be any surprise when they continue to find our behavior bewildering and infuriating as they continue to botch their dealings with us.

Update: JPayne points out that Senator Kerry was among those who voted for the Byrd-Hagel resolution, and how he now says he is in favor of the Kyoto accord. Is there any issue he isn't on all sides of? (One, I guess; he firmly opposes the idea of Bush being reelected.)

Also, Jeff comments, as does Andrew.

Update 20040402: Tom disagrees.

Update: I'd like to clarify something, as a response to some emails I've gotten. I believe that if Gore had been elected in 2000 rather than Bush, the American response to the 9/11 attack would have been much different – and, quite frankly, much worse (in the sense of being much less effective). I do not think a Gore administration would have chosen the large strategy of trying to reform the Arab world, as Bush did, and I think that anything less would ultimately have led to disaster in the long run.

However, once we invaded Iraq, then we were committed to the large strategy. If Kerry gets elected this year, he'll have to carry through with it. There might be other ways in which a Kerry foreign policy would differ from a Bush foreign policy, but on the question of continuing to work for democracy in Iraq and making sure it doesn't collapse in just a few years, there would be no important difference. And since I think that to be the one key ingredient to winning the war in the long run, that's what really matters to me.

And that's even without factoring in the likely continuing domination of one or both chambers of the Congress by the Republicans, even if Kerry wins.