The Leader

Infantile resentment

22 November 2003

There is something chilling in the refusal of the marchers to see the irony of their position; and that is because the march is only partly rational, and only partly about Bush. This is about America, and a certain infantile resentment of the only superpower. It is certainly sad that Mr Bush has failed to persuade the world of his cause, and that America is not blessed, at this critical point, with eloquence. That is no excuse for the anti-American sentiment now rising like scum to the surface of modern Britain. We can forgive the anti-globalisation nutcases, who refuse to see that free trade offers the best long-term hope for the poorest of the planet. We indulge the traditional histrionics of Harold Pinter or Tony Benn. More pernicious is the poison of British middle-class conservative anti-Americanism, hidden during the Cold War and now potentiated by Bush.

That this new anti-Americanism is an ignoble feeling, to do with jealousy and impotence, is proved by the haste with which those who feel it deny it. There has always been scope for cheerful Churchillian exasperation at American folly and excess. That is not the feeling abroad among conservative anti-Americans. Too often they view America with a cold, snotty, arabising, Philbyesque contempt, and openly desire her defeat. That is a mistake. America has fought for freedom not only in Iraq but at Guadalcanal and Omaha Beach, not to mention Bosnia, where western Europeans apathetically connived in slaughter. America deserves better. So does Bush, and so does the world.