The Blair Effect
By ROGER COHEN
Op-Ed Columnist
International Herald Tribune
June 4, 2007
LONDON
"Poodle" and "lackey" are among the epithets Tony Blair has had to endure for his support of President George W. Bush through the wars that followed the 9/11 terrorist attack on the United States.
Such mockery has demonstrated a flippant disregard for reality, not least the fact that if Blair had sided with Germany and France against the United States over Iraq, there would be little left of the Atlantic Alliance, the bedrock of global stability for almost six decades.
The poodle school has also failed to note that when European leaders want Bush to listen, be it over Iran or climate change, Blair has been their preferred conduit to the White House precisely because he chose not to scrap the special relationship.
It was Blair who, during his visit last month to Washington, pressed Bush to change course on global warming and provide belated American leadership on a defining 21st-century issue.
Such appeals have been a staple of the outgoing British prime minister's meetings with Bush. But it was only on May 17, according to officials close to Blair, that the suasion prevailed and Bush made clear to his closest ally that he would embrace a global framework for cutting carbon dioxide emissions.
Other factors, of course, contributed to Bush's conversion, among them Al Gore's inconvenient truths, Arnold Schwarzenegger's California dreaming, pressure from business leaders, and calls from a Democratic Congress. But Blair's persistence counted.
That is an inconvenient truth to Blair's critics, just as the significance of Bush's change of heart has been too much for his foes to acknowledge.
It seems that if Bush announced the abolition of the death penalty in the United States, Europeans would respond in indignant unison that he had not gone far enough because he failed to abolish death altogether.
The European principle that Bush is wrong, no matter what, has been amply illustrated since the president declared that the United States, working with China and India, would seek "a long-term global goal for reducing greenhouse gases" by the end of next year.
Bush thereby adopted two critical principles he had resisted: the need to slash gas emissions and to achieve those cuts in a global framework. For a man long convinced the 1997 Kyoto protocol was bunk, the shift was real.
But bunk was what most Europeans saw in Bush's volte-face. His proposals have been portrayed as an attempt to undercut this week's G-8 summit in Germany, a maneuver to undermine the United Nations role in climate talks, and a ploy to kick a now unavoidable issue down the road.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, wants her Heiligendamm get-together to produce agreement on some specific numbers, including a 50 percent emissions cut by 2050 over 1990 levels.
Such figures are dandy, but European nations have found even Kyoto's modest targets elusive. The protocol, which expires in 2012, has been bedeviled by several factors: the lack of an American buy-in, the failure to address the central role of China and India, and the restricted availability of clean-energy technology.
Bush has been close to the American mainstream in seeing China's Kyoto exemption as a fundamental flaw. China, rising on carbon-dioxide-belching coal power, will soon overtake the United States as greenhouse-gas emitter supreme.
Kyoto's exemption, as developing nations, of China and India also left open a question at the heart of the climate debate: How to balance these countries' priority - rapid growth to satisfy the needs of their vast and poor populations - against the developed world's deepening preoccupation with melting icecaps.
A German consumer now wants to know the carbon imprint of his food. That is nice but a Chinese peasant just wants to eat.
By stating that China and India must be part of the discussion and the post-Kyoto solution, by offering the American leadership without which no big global problem gets fixed, and by insisting industry leaders must cooperate on ways "to share clean energy technology," Bush neither dodged nor feinted.
He faced facts. Late in the day, sure, but he also alluded specifically to "our responsibilities under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change."
Blair was among the few Europeans with the guts to hail that as "a huge step forward." At Heiligendamm this week, his role will again be crucial in the quest to bridge remaining gaps on climate change.
Neither poodle nor lackey, Blair has been point man and link. He will be missed - swirls of European hot air notwithstanding.
Op-Ed Columnist
International Herald Tribune
June 4, 2007
LONDON
"Poodle" and "lackey" are among the epithets Tony Blair has had to endure for his support of President George W. Bush through the wars that followed the 9/11 terrorist attack on the United States.
Such mockery has demonstrated a flippant disregard for reality, not least the fact that if Blair had sided with Germany and France against the United States over Iraq, there would be little left of the Atlantic Alliance, the bedrock of global stability for almost six decades.
The poodle school has also failed to note that when European leaders want Bush to listen, be it over Iran or climate change, Blair has been their preferred conduit to the White House precisely because he chose not to scrap the special relationship.
It was Blair who, during his visit last month to Washington, pressed Bush to change course on global warming and provide belated American leadership on a defining 21st-century issue.
Such appeals have been a staple of the outgoing British prime minister's meetings with Bush. But it was only on May 17, according to officials close to Blair, that the suasion prevailed and Bush made clear to his closest ally that he would embrace a global framework for cutting carbon dioxide emissions.
Other factors, of course, contributed to Bush's conversion, among them Al Gore's inconvenient truths, Arnold Schwarzenegger's California dreaming, pressure from business leaders, and calls from a Democratic Congress. But Blair's persistence counted.
That is an inconvenient truth to Blair's critics, just as the significance of Bush's change of heart has been too much for his foes to acknowledge.
It seems that if Bush announced the abolition of the death penalty in the United States, Europeans would respond in indignant unison that he had not gone far enough because he failed to abolish death altogether.
The European principle that Bush is wrong, no matter what, has been amply illustrated since the president declared that the United States, working with China and India, would seek "a long-term global goal for reducing greenhouse gases" by the end of next year.
Bush thereby adopted two critical principles he had resisted: the need to slash gas emissions and to achieve those cuts in a global framework. For a man long convinced the 1997 Kyoto protocol was bunk, the shift was real.
But bunk was what most Europeans saw in Bush's volte-face. His proposals have been portrayed as an attempt to undercut this week's G-8 summit in Germany, a maneuver to undermine the United Nations role in climate talks, and a ploy to kick a now unavoidable issue down the road.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, wants her Heiligendamm get-together to produce agreement on some specific numbers, including a 50 percent emissions cut by 2050 over 1990 levels.
Such figures are dandy, but European nations have found even Kyoto's modest targets elusive. The protocol, which expires in 2012, has been bedeviled by several factors: the lack of an American buy-in, the failure to address the central role of China and India, and the restricted availability of clean-energy technology.
Bush has been close to the American mainstream in seeing China's Kyoto exemption as a fundamental flaw. China, rising on carbon-dioxide-belching coal power, will soon overtake the United States as greenhouse-gas emitter supreme.
Kyoto's exemption, as developing nations, of China and India also left open a question at the heart of the climate debate: How to balance these countries' priority - rapid growth to satisfy the needs of their vast and poor populations - against the developed world's deepening preoccupation with melting icecaps.
A German consumer now wants to know the carbon imprint of his food. That is nice but a Chinese peasant just wants to eat.
By stating that China and India must be part of the discussion and the post-Kyoto solution, by offering the American leadership without which no big global problem gets fixed, and by insisting industry leaders must cooperate on ways "to share clean energy technology," Bush neither dodged nor feinted.
He faced facts. Late in the day, sure, but he also alluded specifically to "our responsibilities under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change."
Blair was among the few Europeans with the guts to hail that as "a huge step forward." At Heiligendamm this week, his role will again be crucial in the quest to bridge remaining gaps on climate change.
Neither poodle nor lackey, Blair has been point man and link. He will be missed - swirls of European hot air notwithstanding.
posted by greenpagan at 9:12 PM
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