[A-List] miscalculation

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

How to explain the dramatic opposition of the French, German, Russian
alliance against the US war drive?

Two futher thoughts

1) there is a silent fouth member, known best through Russian contacts -
China. It will not cast a veto but its position is consistently cautious
and quietly unfriendly to US hegemonism. Its long term good will may be
useful. They know they really have an alliance of 4 significant states.

2) All the analysts had predicted the France would fall into line
eventually as it did just before the Gulf war. In order to make this more
probable the US, and Britain emphasised the inevitability of the war. The
US implied that a UN endorsement was not necessary. This was reasoned to
make it more likely that France would eventually concur, while Britain
could be soft cop and run around finding a formula which the French would
endorse so they would not feel isolated.

However the calculations may now go the other way. France has seen enough
signs that certainly Blair, and maybe Bush will have problems without UN
endorsement. Doubts about a split in the Atlantic alliance now potentially
cause greater instability for the US-UK axis than for their opponents.

Why do I suggest this? The US are persisting with the line that the war is
inevitable and they don't mind about UN endorsement anyway. But I get the
impression there is not only anger that US hegemonism should be defied so
openly, but also shock and surprise.

Downing Street today at first flatly denied there was a Franco-German plan
- not believing that they could produce a plan without first showing it to
the USA and to Britain. A spokesperson spluttered about the destructiveness
of the French initiative.

The anti-hegemonist bloc has clearly thought ahead about the scenario of
the US going to war without UN endorsement. It has calculated that it can
live with that risk more comfortably in fact than the hegemonist bloc of
Bush and Blair.  The latter have miscalculated and have no immediate answer
but to say 'we are going ahead anyway, despite the fact that could
intensify their problems. They have no exit strategy, France and Russia do.
That weakens the position of the USA and the UK in ways they have not
calculated.

I suggest

Chris Burford

London