The fruits of victory

Washington DC

George W. Bush announced during his State of the Union message that America and its allies will disarm Iraq with or without the UN. If America, as appears increasingly likely, gets war, it will be thanks in large part to Tony Blair and Britain. But what will Tony Blair and Britain get thanks to America?

A typical American would answer (a) that’s the wrong question, and (b) quite a lot. If Tony Blair is America’s poodle, then his yap is being heard. Britain stands higher in US estimation than at any time since 1945. Recent opinion polls yield results that could make an American question whether Britain was a foreign country at all. When Gallup asked Americans last week whether they could ‘count on’ Germany, they replied ‘No’, by 51 per cent to 40 – which places Germans at roughly Saudi Arabian levels of trustworthiness. France ranked even lower, down with China. But asked whether America could count on Britain, respondents said ‘Yes’ – by 95 to 5.

It’s true that Americans can be fickle judges on such matters. After Gerhard Schroeder’s repudiation of American war plans last autumn, France was in marvellous odour in Washington for several weeks, and pundits waxed lyrical about the two democratic republics with their tradition of exporting universal values. But after France embraced the German position at the anniversary of the ElysZe pact in mid-January, a betrayal so wounding that even Colin Powell lost his patience with pleading Europeans’ cause, all that changed. The Simpsons’ description of the French as ‘cheese-eating surrender monkeys’ has stuck. The name of the French foreign minister is on the lips of even the proletarian commuters who listen to Rush Limbaugh, ever since the chat-show host insisted that the country shouldn’t be taking foreign policy advice from someone named Dominique de Villepin.