hardball

Even within the conservative punditocracy, President Bush's diplomatic tour of Europe last week received mixed marks. At NRO on Friday, Denis Boyles pronounced the President's efforts charmless; in the next column over, Larry Kudlow judged the trip a smashing success.

Not surprisingly, wordsmith Mark Steyn's reviews are the most provocative. Last Tuesday's offering in the UK Telegraph offered a vivid metaphor.

[I]n the broader sense vis-à-vis Europe, the administration is changing the tone precisely because it understands there can be no substance. And, if there's no substance that can be changed, what's to quarrel about? International relations are like ex-girlfriends: if you're still deluding yourself you can get her back, every encounter will perforce be fraught and turbulent; once you realise that's never gonna happen, you can meet for a quick decaf latte every six – make that 10 – months and do the whole hey-isn't-it-terrific-the-way-we're-able-to-be-such-great-friends routine because you couldn't care less. You can even make a few pleasant noises about her new romance (the so-called European Constitution) secure in the knowledge he's a total loser.

World leaders are always most expansive when there's least at stake: the Queen's Christmas message to the Commonwealth is the ne plus ultra of this basic rule. In Her Majesty's beloved Commonwealth family, talking about enduring ties became a substitute for having them.

That's the salient feature of transatlantic dialogue since 9/11: it's become Commonwealth-esque - all airy assertions about common values, ties of history, all meaningless.

But it was Steyn's closer that received most of the attention.

This week we're toasting the end of an idea: the death of “the West”.

He meant the idea of the West as a cohesive civilization: Europe and America are about to part ways, and for good. Columnist and blogger Austin Bay begs to differ, however, pointing out the hero's welcome that the President received in Slovakia. In essence, Bay argues that the Old Europe/New Europe dichotomy—which even SecDef Donald Rumsfeld is disowning these days—still captures something of the very real distinction between Western and Eastern Europe.

The West isn’t dead, it’s expanding. NATO remains a prime tool for “confidence building.” I am also confident that the people of France can ultimately handle democracy, just like the Iraqis. Someday they will be liberated from Chirac and his ilk. (Paint Paris Purple!) As “Old Europe” confronts its host of problems, new, genuinely progressive leaders will replace the current crop of declinists and defeatists whose anti-American cant is a complete cop-out. Europeans will leave the Flower Generation and join the New Greatest Generation.

I wish that I could be so upbeat, but I'm with Steyn on this one. Sure, Poland, Slovakia, and the Baltic states are pro-Western and pro-American—for now. And yes, many of the Eastern European economies remain unhindered by crippling tax burdens and unsustainable welfare commitments—for now. But just wait until the EU gets done with them.

And just wait until the EU itself collapses under the weight of its own contradictions, a decade or two hence. There won't be a Marshall Plan to pick up the pieces in 2025.

Anyways. This post was intended to be about the nature of diplomacy in Bush II—which can be summed up in a single word: hardball. Here's Steyn again, from yesterday's Chicago Sun-Times.

Lester Pearson, the late Canadian prime minister, used to say that diplomacy is the art of letting the other fellow have your way. All week long President Bush offered a hilariously parodic reductio of Pearson's bon mot, wandering from one European Union gabfest to another insisting how much he loves his good buddy Jacques and his good buddy Gerhard and how Europe and America share — what's the standard formulation? — “common values.” Care to pin down an actual specific value or two that we share? Well, you know, “freedom,” that sort of thing, abstract nouns mostly. Love to list a few more common values, but gotta run.

And at the end what's changed?

Will the United States sign on to Kyoto?

No.

Will the United States join the International Criminal Court?

No.

Will the United States agree to accept whatever deal the Anglo-Franco-German negotiators cook up with Iran?

No.

Not that the Europeans were any more forthcoming, mind you: the French, for instance, magnanimously announced that they would dispatch a single soldier as part of NATO's new commitment to Iraq. But for a world press deeply invested in the image of Bush's European Adventure as a posterior-kissing expedition, the reality must have been something of a shock.

Yet to all appearances, Russian President Vladimir Putin received an even bigger jolt.

Meeting in the Slovakian capital, Bratislava, Mr Bush emerged from a three-hour meeting with the Russian President joking and smiling and full of warm words. But his frequent references to “Vladimir” and the “fella” were peppered with targeted criticism of the state of democracy in Russia with which the more hawkish members of his administration are said to have lost patience.

An unsmiling, visibly irritated Mr Putin squirmed as he listened to Mr Bush tell a press conference he had been told that Washington had “concerns about Russia's commitment in fulfilling” the “universal principles” of democracy. “Democracies always reflect a country's customs and culture, and I know that,” Mr Bush said. “Yet democracies have certain things in common; they have a rule of law, and protection of minorities, a free press, and a viable political opposition.” […]

For a man who is seldom subjected to such face-to-face criticism and is famously cool under pressure, [Putin] looked at times as if he was about to lose his composure. “I respect some of his [Mr Bush's ideas] a lot and take them into account. Others I won't. [Such issues] should not be pushed to the foreground. New problems should not be created that could jeopardise our relationship. We want to develop the relationship.”

Mr Putin said: “Russia chose democracy 14 years ago without any outside pressure. It made this choice for itself, in its own interests and for its people and its citizens. It was a definitive choice and there is no turning back.” A return to totalitarianism was impossible, he added.

However he indulged in none of the informal small talk beloved of Mr Bush and looked relieved to exit the stage with a stiff handshake, his face taut with pressure. In Russian official circles, the meeting is likely to be seen as a humiliation.

Shortly before the summit my friend TF6S predicted that President Bush would tread softly with his Russian counterpart, on grounds that “Russia is an essential partner in fighting our most dangerous enemy: Fundamentalist Islamic Fascism.” I happen to agree with that sentiment, but the guess on Mr. Bush's summiteering proved to be wrong. Very few—certainly not Putin—saw what was coming.

But did the President show Putin up deliberately? It seems hard to interpret the news conference any other way. And that was not the only diplomatic surprise at the week's end. On Friday SecState Rice abruptly cancelled a planned trip to Cairo, a move that seems to have deeply unsettled Egyptian President Mubarak.

Next up may well be yanking back the St. Patrick's Day welcome mat for Sinn Fein leader and IRA apologist Gerry Adams (via Brothers Judd).

US President George W Bush is expected to announce in the next few days that this year’s St Patrick’s Day party in the White House will be cancelled in response to allegations that Sinn Fein members, including leader Gerry Adams, authorised December’s £26.5 million IRA bank robbery in Belfast.

The White House snub will further isolate Sinn Fein from the political mainstream, and comes as a man surrendered himself to police in connection with the IRA murder of a Belfast man that has thrown the organisation into crisis. […]

The White House party was cancelled as a result of lobbying by the Irish government and Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, who is furious over what is widely believed to be Sinn Fein’s complicity in the December bank raid.

By persuading the White House to cancel the whole event Ahern believes he has denied Adams the opportunity for political martyrdom, a usual Republican tactic when excluded from the political process.

Officials in Washington are furious that when President Bush phoned Adams during December’s peace talks to urge him to accept a new deal the Sinn Fein leader was, according to the Irish government, already aware of the bank robbery plan.

Adams is a bloody-handed but silver-tongued reptile. In an ideal world, President Bush wouldn't just play hardball with the terror apologist, but would in addition introduce him to the business end of a stick of American ash.