Splits within the Western Alliance over Iraq have been heightened by the fact that world leaders apparently have forgotten how to behave diplomatically. Disagreements that were once resolved behind closed doors, in formal, respectful language, have been played out in all-too-public insults and temper tantrums.
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It was reported today that a Canadian MP has apologised for a comment she let slip at the end of an interview about Canada's diplomatic initiative on Iraq. 'Damn Americans', the politician fumed. 'I hate those bastards.' Late last year, the Canadian prime minister's communications director Françoise Ducros resigned after calling US President George W Bush 'a moron' during a conversation with a reporter in Prague (1).
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Two months ago, US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed German and French opposition to war. 'You're thinking of Europe as Germany and France', he told reporters: 'I don't. I think that's old Europe.' (2)
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Sparks immediately flew back from across the Atlantic. 'I find this comment on "old Europe" deeply irritating. Old Europe is resilient and capable of bouncing back', said French finance minister Francis Mer. French defence minister Michele Alliot-Marie was quoted as saying: 'We are no longer in prehistoric times when whoever had the biggest club would try to knock the other guy out so he could steal his mammoth skin.' (3)
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Then early in February, Rumsfeld linked Germany's position towards war Iraq with that of the US's long-term foes, telling a news programme that: '[T]here are three or four countries that have said they won't do anything. I believe Libya, Cuba and Germany are ones that have indicated they won't help in any respect.'
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The news reporter had to remind him of his country's close relationship with Germany. 'In fact, Germany is the home of the US military's European Command, and the German government has already made clear the United States can freely use its bases there during any military action against Iraq.' (4)
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Old diplomatic hand James Rubin, who was an assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration, signalled that this just isn't how you do things. 'At a moment of grand diplomacy, you try to figure out a subtle way to back the other party into your corner', he said (5). You don't explode and force a rift.
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Other foreign policy watchers were also concerned: 'The United States might be better off at this point if Rumsfeld makes major amends or resigns, the damage is so severe and so counterproductive to our interests', said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (6).
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But Europeans have been similarly lacking in diplomatic acumen. French president Jacques Chirac lashed out at the pro-American East European countries who are petitioning to join the European Union (EU), calling them 'infantile' and 'dangerous'. 'These countries have been not very well behaved and rather reckless of the danger of aligning themselves too rapidly with the American position', he told a news conference after an EU summit on the Iraq crisis. 'They missed a great opportunity to shut up.' (7)
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It is well-known that France has concerns about the expansion of the EU, and is irritated that these countries are siding with the USA over Iraq, but effectively to call them a bunch of barbarians is certainly not very well behaved. A French official's defence on Newsnight - that Chirac got angry - is a description rather than an excuse. It was left to Poland's foreign minister to offer the reprimand that 'Emotions are not the best advisers to politicians' (8).
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 | | An international climate where every inward curse is uttered out loud is less stable and predictable |
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This international outbreak of rudeness lies partly in new post-Cold War geopolitical arrangements. While the Western Alliance was bound under American leadership, facing the Communist foe, disagreements would be kept under wraps as much as possible. Germany and the USA would have solved their differences in private, and in euphemistic, polite language.
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Today, statesmen lack this sense of common interest - indeed, they seem to have lost the sense that the diplomatic sphere exists apart from the world of commentary and public debate. They increasingly conduct their affairs in public, telling TV reporters exactly what they think of country X - or even saying how they would respond if America proposed a particular course of action. So France seems more likely to find out what America thinks of its latest proposal on Iraq from CNN, than from its representative at an official dinner, and so on.
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And during the Cold War, when the principle of the sovereign equality of nation states was accorded greater importance, the Polands and Estonias of the world had to be respected in rhetoric, if not in reality. France might have thought that many of the world's countries were a bunch of barbarians, but it would have been less likely to come out and say it.
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And at the individual level, politicians sometimes seem not to realise that they are statesmen - that Chirac is a representative, not of Chirac's self-esteem, but France's national interest. Chirac the individual may feel angry at Eastern Europe, but Chirac the statesman might have chosen to suppress these sentiments because they would have damaging effects.
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Canadian deputy prime minister John Manley has despaired of his ministers' slips. 'I've tried to encourage members of the House and Senate to recognise they are public figures and they should exercise a certain amount of discretion in what they say', he said (9).
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So far as the public goes, there are some advantages to having politicians' machinations paraded so nakedly on prime-time TV. In the past, historians would have to piece together the evidence from diaries and secret documents to find out what went on in conferences; today, we know nearly as much as they do.
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But, as well as being petty and distasteful to watch, the breakdown of diplomacy could also have worrying implications for world affairs. An international climate where every inward curse is uttered out loud, and where every rift is exposed in full view, is likely to be a less stable and predictable one.
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Divisions between countries will tend to be forced to the surface much more. A disagreement in private is a division in theory - once exposed in public it becomes a reality, a fact to which others are compelled to respond.
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Read on:
Language barriers, by James Heartfield
spiked-issue: War on Iraq
(1) MP apologizes for calling Americans 'bastards', CBC, 27 February 2003
(2) 'Old Europe' hits back at Rumsfeld, CNN, 24 January 2003
(3) 'Old Europe' hits back at Rumsfeld, CNN, 24 January 2003
(4) Analysis: Germany's Opposition To U.S. War Against Iraq, 7 February 2003
(5) Rumsfeld's Acid Tongue Burns Europe, Making Compromise Tougher, Seattle Times, 16 February 2003 (republished on Common Dreams)
(6) Rumsfeld's Acid Tongue Burns Europe, Making Compromise Tougher, Seattle Times, 16 February 2003 (republished on Common Dreams)
(7) Chirac lashes out at 'new Europe', CNN, 18 February 2003
(8) The Times (London), 19 February 2003
(9) MP apologizes for calling Americans 'bastards', CBC, 27 February 2003
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