When I’m looking for people who agree with me, conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer rarely comes to mind, but in this recent column, he nails one of the reasons why, contrary to the perceptions of lots of Democratic Party mouthpieces, there are a lot of Americans who aren’t all that troubled by what European leaders think of us. Even as a confirmed Europa-phile, I have to admit that save for the Brits--whose handling of the recent fiasco with Iran hardly evoked memories of Winston Churchill, by the way--it seems that European politicos generally regard us a bunch of insensitive, self-centered, loudmouthed louts. Until, that is, they need our help and proceed to show up with a mouth full of “gimme’’” but barely a thimble-full of “much-obliged.”
Here’s Brother Krauthammer on the European wimp-out in the Iran debacle:
Europeans talk all the time about their preference for "soft power" over the brute military force those Neanderthal Americans resort to all the time. What was the soft power available here? Iran's shaky economy is highly dependent on European credits, trade and technology. Britain asked the EU to threaten to freeze exports, $18 billion a year of commerce. Iran would have lost its No. 1 trading partner. The EU refused….Where then was the EU? These 15 hostages, after all, are not just British citizens, but under the laws of Europe, citizens of Europe. Yet the EU lifted not a finger on their behalf.
In the end, so Charlie claims, it was the Yanks to the Rescue again:
An Iranian "diplomat" who had been held for two months in Iraq is suddenly released. Equally suddenly, Iran is granted access to the five Iranian "consular officials" — Revolutionary Guards who had been training Shiite militias to kill Americans and others — whom the United States had arrested in Irbil in January. There may have been other concessions we will never hear about. But the salient point is that what got this unstuck was American action.
Why did our European brethren fail once again even to venture from the dugout, much less to step up to the plate in a time of crisis? Well, according to the Chuckster:
The reason is simple. Europe functions quite well as a free trade zone. But as a political entity, it is a farce. It remains a collection of sovereign countries with divergent interests. A freeze of economic relations with Europe would have shaken the Iranian economy to the core. Yet nothing was done. "The Dutch," reports The Times of London, "said it was important not to risk a breakdown in dialogue." So much for European solidarity.
Like other vaunted transnational institutions, the EU is useless as a player in the international arena. Not because its members are venal but because they are sovereign. Their interests are simply not identical.”
I’m not sure about Krauthammer’s version of how the U.S. saved the day, but I’m relieved to say that I can at least find something to take issue with in his observation that “Europe functions well as a free trade zone.” For all the hoopla about the EU’s success, it seems to me that it has worked a lot better in many ways for the former have-nots trying to play catch-up, Spain, Ireland, etc., which have benefited not only from EU subsidies but the flow of capital to cheaper labor markets and operating climates than those available in nations like Germany or France. The generous worker benefits packages and higher wages in some of Europe’s more developed nations don’t look all that sustainable right now, in light of the recent admission of Rumania and Bulgaria and the prospective admission of the likes of Croatia and Macedonia, all of them boasting what are described as “highly motivated” workforces. This familiar euphemism for “cheap, nonunion” points toward something mighty like what happened in the U.S. after World War II when the unionized workers of the old northern “Manufacturing Belt” saw their jobs first trickle and then flood into the “Right-to Work Belt” below the Mason-Dixon line.
Concerns about competition with cheaper labor also lay behind criticism of EU immigration policies, along with anxieties about preserving cultural and religious identities. Then there are the Austrian truckers who are none too keen about being forced to compete with foreign carriers in their own countries and the German automakers who don’t like being told that their big, fancy and hellaciously fast cars aren’t going to cut it with EU emissions standards. In fact, if the EU continues to push to centralize authority and standardize policies and practices, I can foresee some of our European friends developing greater insight into why the Southern states have so frequently and vehemently objected to Washington’s efforts to impose changes, even changes that were clearly in their best interest. I can remember when people were always telling us the South would “rise again,” but I never heard anybody mention Vienna.
