Escalating Tensions between Russia and the EU
You've made some rather questionable assertions and assumptions in the course of writing today's piece, Mr Tisdall.
In particular your contention that the pursuit of a strategic relationship and friendly relations with the Russians under Putin was the "same approach pursued by Dubya and Mr Blair at the start of the Putin presidency". You continue EQUALLY UNTENABLY with this: "It has since become plain that for Russia's cocksure leader, empathy equals weakness".
Your servile piece __servile and obsequious in pandering to power imperatives as construed from the SITUATED PERSPECTIVE of the transatlantic USUK axis__ on Putin's increasingly assertive response to US scheming to corral the EU within the NATO-surveilled straight-jacket of global missile 'defense' shows no awareness of the realities of contemporary power politics (no awareness of the power-political agendas of hawks like Brzezinski who are largely driving the implementation of policy behind the scenes); you betray a wilful disregard for the dimensions of US scheming that fail to fit the pre-conconceived paradigm to which you've already ideologically committed yourself.
As reported in the IHT yesterday http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/05/asia/AS-GEN-China-US-Missile-Defense.php China has just come out in support of the Russian position on NMD __with their spokeswoman underlining the fact that their position vis-a-vis missiles to be stationed offshore on the Japanese mainland is analagous to that of Moscow with regarding Poland and the servility of the Czechs. Albrecht Haushofer the pre-WWII German geo-startegist, clearly delineated in outline the Brzezinski approach as elaborated in the latter's The Grand Chessboard: a configuration of Island Powers (for which read USUK, Canada, Australia and South Africa with ongoing associated efforts to co-opt the (anglophone) Indians into alignment with the agenda via playing on strategic rivalries and tensions between them and the Chinese.
Juxtaposed against this are the so-called CONTINENTAL POWERS of the Eurasian land mass __Russia and China__ with the (continental) Europeans finding themselves somewhere in-between. The imperative which has at all costs informed the strategic goals of angloamerican scheming has been to block the development of a closer business and strategic RAPPROCHEMENT between France and Germany in particular and (on the other hand) the Russians and Chinese. Recall the furore over the mooted loosening of the embargo on arms sales to China two years ago for example; and also the stridently expressed 'imperative' to posit the French and Germans as integral components of a so-called 'unified west'.
You are well aware of all this Tisdall, but it is your status as 'parti pris' on the issues at stake that drives you intellectual coyness on them.
There are other flagrant sleights-of-hand in your piece for example the disingenuous contention (Kosovo notwithstanding!) that Blair can ever have been construed to have subscribed to an ethical foreign policy.
And there is ambuigity in this from you: "Therein lies a quandary for Sarkozy (over standing up to Bush on climate targets and on the UN Kyoto process as the non-negotiable forum for arriving at multilateral consensus on climate change). The French president says he wants improved ties with the US, a tall order, according to foreign affairs analyst Dominique Moisi, while Mr Bush remains in office. On the climate change issue, he could face his own ‘security council moment’, as in 2003 when France opposed the Bush administration's decision to circumvent the UN on Iraq and bilateral relations nosedived. If Mr Sarkozy blinks on this or other key issues, his credibility will quickly plummet, too".
And there is ambuigity in this from you: "Therein lies a quandary for Sarkozy (over standing up to Bush on climate targets and on the UN Kyoto process as the non-negotiable forum for arriving at multilateral consensus on climate change). The French president says he wants improved ties with the US, a tall order, according to foreign affairs analyst Dominique Moisi, while Mr Bush remains in office. On the climate change issue, he could face his own ‘security council moment’, as in 2003 when France opposed the Bush administration's decision to circumvent the UN on Iraq and bilateral relations nosedived. If Mr Sarkozy blinks on this or other key issues, his credibility will quickly plummet, too".
BASED ON YOUR TRACK RECORD it looks as if (as with your stance on Iraq in 2003) you'd be more concerned with the putative 'unity of the west' (read 'western alliance aka NATO'!) than with the spectre of the president of France actually standing up for a moral principle.
Finally on the potential of Brown as a 'good European', the notion is derisory and is one further good reason for the original EU six to pursue enhanced co-operation at the expense of hangers-on and mere satellites like the UK, Ireland and Poland.
And to hell with the 'sensitivities' of the latter!!
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