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Disarmament DocumentationBack to Disarmament Documentation 'Is the world today safer than before the overthrow of the appalling Saddam? Is global terrorism in retreat?', European Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten on Iraq, September 15, 2004The Rt. Hon Chris Patten Speech on Iraq It is almost exactly 5 years since I appeared in this Parliament for my confirmation hearings as a Commissioner. Since then I have been fortunate enough to take part in literally scores of debates, more than any other Commissioner, such is the Parliament's interest in external relations I would like to thank the Parliament and its members for the courtesy that I have usually been shown. I have enjoyed coming here. It is important to try to establish democratic roots for foreign policy. It is not an area of public policy to be left to the diplomatic experts, whose record is at best somewhat patchy. Anyway, as I ride off into the sunset, I should like to record my appreciation for the Parliament's role in developing, not by leaps and bounds but - inevitably - by lurches and shuffles, Europe's common external relations policy. The worst shambles to have overwhelmed us in the last 5 years has of course been the row over Iraq. I don't want to go back over old arguments. If we needed reminding that you cannot have a common policy if the larger member states are deeply divided, then here was the evidence. Other evidence also speaks eloquently for itself. As someone once said, "stuff happens". Is the world today safer than before the overthrow of the appalling Saddam? Is global terrorism in retreat? Are we closer to building bridges between Islam and the West? Is the world's only super-power more widely respected? Have the citizens in our democracies been treated in a way that will encourage them to give governments the benefit of the doubt next time they are told that force needs to be used pre-emptively to deal with an imminent threat? I simply pose the questions. Honourable Members will have their own answers. But here we are. Saddam overthrown. Violence raging across much of the liberated land. The regime changed with an interim government preparing the way for democratic elections. Whatever our past criticisms we are all now up to our ears in this endeavour. If Iraq goes badly, we all suffer. So we have to work together to try to hold the democratic project together. What are we pledged to do as a Union, leaving aside the contribution of individual Member States? We have already pledged, and are working hard to deploy, €200 million this year. I very much hope that we will be able to secure agreement for a further €200 million for next year. We are developing a good record in disbursing this assistance, having paid more than €200m into the UN and World Bank trust funds over the course of the past year. We are working well with the UN and World Bank, helping to ensure that our resources are disbursed quickly and well. We have focused our assistance this year on three areas: essential public services - health, education, water and sanitation, on poverty alleviation and the development of livelihoods, and on governance and civil society. I would not pretend that all is well, however. How could I? The hazardous security climate - evident not least in the appalling series of kidnappings, most recently of humanitarian workers dedicated to the well-being of Iraqis, and evident also in yesterday's atrocity in Baghdad - obviously limits the pace of disbursement, as does the fact that we are working with an interim government that is still feeling its way in public administration. That's life - life, at least, in Iraq - and we will continue to do our utmost within the constraints of the situation on the ground. What I can say, firmly, is that I am convinced that our decision to take the multilateral, trust fund, route was absolutely the right one. A comparison of our disbursement rate with that of other bilateral donors, including the largest donor of all, only confirms this. In the coming months, we will continue to implement the proposals set out in our Communication of 9 June, which has received widespread endorsement. In particular, we will focus on the essential issue of support to the electoral process. Once the Independent Electoral Commission and the UN have identified exactly what they need, we stand ready to help. But I should be clear that, under current circumstances, we cannot and will not propose a conventional election observation mission - that would be impossible - but we will seek ways to ensure that we play our full part in assisting free and fair elections in Iraq. In the longer term, we will need to consider how best the Commission can be represented on the ground. Opening a delegation would obviously be difficult, expensive, and potentially dangerous. But we are prepared to consider that route, if it is clear that it would add to our effectiveness in helping the Iraqi people. So let me be blunt: we will work for a better future in Iraq whatever the bitterness of past disputes. There is, though, one other general point I want to make, triggered by these reflections on Iraq. When just over two years ago, some of us expressed concerns that the United States was abandoning the sort of multilateralism which had characterised its foreign and security policy since the Second World War, we were strongly criticised. America, we were assured, still wished to work with allies provided they shared Washington's view of how to cope with a dangerous world, and by and large kept any reservations to themselves. Some allies did, indeed, accompany America to Baghdad, a venture not yet blessed (as we have noted) with the easy and benign consequences that were famously predicted and promised. Liberation rapidly turned into a brutally resisted occupation. Democracy failed to roll out like an oriental carpet across the thankless deserts of the Middle East. Above all, peace in Jerusalem and Palestine was not accomplished by victory in Baghdad. So, partly because American neo-conservative unilateralism had clearly failed to establish an empire of peace, liberty and democracy, we have been more recently advised that allies and multilateralism were back in fashion in Washington. Even the United Nations was deemed to have its uses. Vivat the State Department. All done and dusted then? Sighs of relief all round? Can we now look forward to the restoration of that old-fashioned notion that allies have to be led not bossed, and that multilateral institutions have their important uses even for the world's only super-power - that, pace Machiavelli, there is much to be said for being admired and not just feared. The rhetoric of the present US election campaign inevitably raises a few questions. I do not seek to take sides. America elects its President and Congress. The rest of the world looks on. We in Europe should work as well as we can with whoever wins. We are not partisans in the process whatever our private opinions. Moreover, I am not so naïve as to confuse campaign rhetoric with a Platonic dialogue. I have, after all, been a party Chairman myself. But campaign rhetoric does reflect something, and what is reflected here is pretty unsettling. If you want to get a cheap cheer from certain quarters in America it seems that all you have to do is to bash the U.N., or the French or the very idea that allies are entitled to have their own opinions. Multilateralists, we are told, want to out-source American foreign and security policy to a bunch of garlic chewing, cheese eating wimps. The opinions of mankind, which the Founding Fathers of the United States thought their country should note and respect, are to be treated with contempt unless, I suppose, they faithfully reflect the agenda of the American Enterprise Institute and Fox T.V. What are we to make of all this? First, multilateralism is above all in the best interests of the United States, a point which previous administrations would not have questioned; and most political leaders would have subscribed to for the past 60 years. Second, surely the national interest of the superpower is to put its traditional allies on the spot, not challenging their right to consultation but probing what they have to say and how they intend to turn their rhetoric about co-operation into effective, not effete, multilateralism. How, to take one obvious point, do we intend to go about not just draining the swamps in which terrorism breeds but also shooting some of the crocodiles? Further, how and when will we countenance the use of force to support the international rule of law? A question which we in Europe regularly duck. If the political culture of American exceptionalism excludes the notion of working with and talking to foreigners, if unpopularity overseas is taken as a mark of distinction, a source of pride, too many Europeans will make the mirror-image mistake of thinking that sniping at America is the same as having a European foreign and security policy. What I most worry about is that on either side of the Atlantic we will bring out the worst in our traditional partners. The world deserves better than testosterone on one side and superciliousness on the other. American and European citizens deserve better, too. After all, they face the same dangers and the same challenges. I want a Europe which is a super-partner not a super-sniper - a super-partner of a respected global leader. Any alternative to that offers only the prospect of a more perilous and a more querulous future. Source: European Commission, http://europa.eu.int. © 2003 The Acronym Institute. |