Britain and France need to lead, together - International Herald Tribune

ROSBIFS & FROGS -- UNITE!

Britain and France need to lead, together -International Herald Tribune:

"At that moment (Suez) Britain and France took diverging paths in their respective quests for post-imperial influence. Britain vowed never again to cross the Americans, France never again to be humiliated by them. The battle lines were drawn in a conflict between London and Paris in and over NATO and the European Union that has raged on and off ever since, and that has become as futile as it is dangerous on both sides of the Channel. It must now end.

The recent war in Lebanon and the attempted destruction of thousands over the Atlantic demonstrate that the world in which Europeans live is dangerous in the extreme. Europeans cannot hide, even though many try. There are only two countries that can save Europe from the self-deluding isolationism into which it is tipping: Britain and France.

In the wake of the Suez crisis, Britain's elite handed over to Washington their nation's grand strategy and abandoned any pretense of strategic self-confidence. U.S. strategic leadership remains vital, but that very leadership must be open to the shaping of powerful European allies. And, as America's dangerously one- dimensional policy toward the Middle East demonstrates, Israel enjoys a far stronger special relationship with America than Britain does.

Indeed, Britain has now reached the very limits of 'poodle-ism,' the greatest tragedy of which is the lack of belief in Britain that it demonstrates on the part of Prime Minister Tony Blair.

France, in turn, has reached the limits of Gaullism, which was always founded on the need to aggregate European power in support of French aims. The rest of Europe is simply no longer prepared to pay for France's strategic ambitions."