February 10, 2003

France and Belgium, among Europe's staunchest opponents of a rush to war in Iraq, infuriated Washington on Monday by blocking a NATO plan to boost Turkish defenses in case of a war.

Their opposition revealed deep splits across the globe over attacking Iraq because of Baghdad's alleged weapons of mass destruction. NATO responded by calling a special meeting at 4:30 a.m. EST to discuss the deadlock.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld denounced the move by France and Belgium as "a disgrace" and said countries blocking the plan to reinforce Turkey's defenses would be condemned by their own people.

Turkey, NATO's only Muslim member country, could be one of the staging points for an attack on Iraq, which it borders. France and Belgium say boosting NATO's defenses would send the signal that war with Iraq had already started.

Rummy's right, as usual, and I do believe this move and this moment will be condemned by the French and Belgian peoples someday...but probably not soon.
Yes, I think the French, Germans and the Belgians and any other of their "Old European" sympathizers will look back on these days and the leaders who took them to this place with great regret and sorrow, because we are seeing something epic, but awful happening here.
Awful for them, that is.
Not satisfied with thwarting our aim of waging a justifiable disarmament of Saddam by force of arms in the UN, Old Europe stabs us again in the back by blocking us in NATO, another peace-preserving entity we created.
Apparently, the evil empire of the Soviet Union didn't really die, it just moved west a bit and changed component parts.
Right now, I think that "Old Europe" is heady with their success in being seen to push around the U.S. (or to attempt to, anyway) and with the recent rise of the EUro and the decline of the U.S. dollar on international currency markets over the past year, they think they have it made as the world's next "superpower..."
But these temporary gains will not last, I promise you, and their perceived power in the world will prove to be fleeting.
The EU is founded on illusions and delusions of the worst kind.
It's too difficult to see the big picture here or down the road very far, but we live in a brave, new world.
This is not the 20th Century, but the 21st and change feels scary, but things do change constantly.
And now it's NATO that's changing and dying, because it was really conceived with a post WWII-Western Europe in mind.
Time to move on.
And Turkey should nurture her friendship with us and the New Europe and count out the Old Europe of France, Belgium and Germany.
They must remember that it was Giscard d'Estaing (another Froggie), speaking on behalf of the EU's policy makers, who stated only a few months ago that "Turkey will never be a part of Europe" or the EU.
In these post 9/11 days, we're all finding out who are real friends and allies are and the revelations are too often not very pretty or even comprehensible.
Betrayal is never easy to take with and these latest examples of fecklessness from Old Europe are no exception to that rule.