THE SPINE NOVEMBER 23, 2009
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There were two high points in the career of Tony Blair. One was 2003 when Hugh Grant played the British prime minister in Love Actually. The second was in 2006 when Michael Sheen played him in The Queen who was herself portrayed by Helen Mirren. Frankly, it's been downhill ever since. Of course, he had been the longest serving Labour prime minister in history. But he was also a victim of the Iraq war which he had supported basically against the wishes of his party and certainly of its rank-and-file. On the very day he told his monarch that he was stepping down and moving out of 10 Downing Street he was appointed Special Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East, the quartet being the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia. A more motley group of intruders into the almost century-old Israel-Palestinian dispute could not be imagined, let alone invented. Anyway failure was its destiny and so also was it the destiny of Blair, poor bloke.
Well, not exactly poor. Like his great friend Bill Clinton he was adept at making cash cling to his fingers and also putting a varnish of philanthropy over his clammy enterprises. In any case, his successor as prime minister, Gordon Brown, pushed Blair as the first full-time president of the European Union. For weeks, fate seemed to be on his side. But the traumatic decline of Labour's standing with the British electorate, which goes to the polls in May, must have made the Europols think twice or thrice about putting Blair at the head of a quarreling and cumbersome government of Europe. It must have also occurred to these pols and to their colleagues at home that Blair had achieved exactly zero--and not a whit more--in his droopy venture with the Israelis and their Palestinian foes.
But, then, there was the crisis of European identity and character. Saturday's Financial Times has a sobering response, "Leaders turn their backs on Giscard's vision," by George Parker and Joshua Chaffin to their own question: "Does this all signal a death of European ambition?"
It is instructive that the person the Euroleadership chose as the chief executive of the continent's political economy was somebody whom nobody knew: he is Herman Van Rompuy who has been prime minister of Belgium for nary a year. Now, Belgium may be a fine setting to learn to deal with fratricidal impulses. You see, Belgium is not exactly a country, what with its deep-rooted cleavage between Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia. As far as I can tell all that unites them is their common anxieties about the fast-growing Muslim population. In any case, Rompuy seems a perfect pick for a regime without ambition.
Lady Ashton, the new diplomatic head of the E.U., is not less unprepossessing.
I have always thought that the idea of Europe was a fantasy which would continually struggle with the idea and the reality of nations on the continent. This idea and this reality were what assured the survival, even the vibrancy of democracy. I hope that the obvious depression that emanates from Brussels will deepen and cut off at the knees the bureaucratic monster of one Europe.
11 comments
As if the EU would let democratic opinion influence their operation. No, Blair's loss doesn't need an explanation beyond the one that comes for free with their actual choice- they wanted someone with a low profile.
- Simon Greenwood
November 23, 2009 at 11:01am
Yeah yeah. We're declining for more than 50 years now. Who would tell? As to the choice of Lord and Lady Van Muppets, well, it's not really bad to have politicians who are quiet and competent, instead of being loud, inept and bungling. Their pro-market, low deficit dementia is what upsets me. But anyway, it's better to have a pro-market low-deficit lunatics than to have pro-market high deficit kleptocrats.
- luispc
November 23, 2009 at 11:17am
yea Gods, Marty is becoming more and more curmudgeonly in his old age. What next, will he write a post about the damned new fangled metric system? I am sure every Belgian must be devastated that Marty doesn't think Belgium is a country (then again, his definition of what constitutes a country is about as narrow as I can imagine, I don't even know if he thinks Canada is a country what with Quebec speaking French and all) Herman Van Rompuy has been around a long time and just because Marty hasn't heard of him doesn't mean Europeans haven't. The guy is a very smart guy, multilingual, is a known conciliator, etc. So he is nondescript, but so was Papa Bush. Anyway, if they did pick someone famous Marty would have screamed how they went all for flash and the post means nothing, yada yada. And I would think Marty would be happy that Van Rompuy is against Turkey being added to the Union. The EU is the largest economic unit on earth, and there is a likelihood that the Eurodollar will become more and more the reserve currency (instead of the US it will be a basket of currencies, with the dollar a decreasing share of it). I have to admit, Marty yelling at the EU to stay off his lawn is kind of funny.
- blackton
November 23, 2009 at 11:42am
So, is Israel not a country, what with its deep-seated cleavage between Jews and Arab Muslims? Or how about Canada, where the Quebecois now and then threaten, realistically, to secede? Shall we declare them already "not a country" even before the act is consummated? In Belgium, whatever the travails of the government, the trains still run on time, the hospitals work, the currency is stable, corruption is minimal. Yes, the centripetal force of the Walloons and the French is a problem, but "not a country?" I would say the fact they managed to get along quite a while two years ago for months without a seated government, and without things falling apart, pretty much makes them a candidate for the most "countryish" of amalgamations. Peretz is losing it.
- sdemuth
November 23, 2009 at 4:05pm
On that basis, I wonder if the U.S. is a country, with about 40% of its adult inhabitants apparently of the opinion that the elected president is a foreign Muslim whose election victory was a criminal conspiracy by ACORN.
- ironyroad
November 23, 2009 at 8:08pm
Marty's right--Belgium is so not a country that last year it was actually put up for sale on E-Bay. And if Belgium isn't a country, Europe most definately is not and will not be.
- Robert Powell
November 24, 2009 at 4:41am
Marty's a tea bagger now - happily wallowing in it like a pig in mud. Bitterness, ignorance and bigotry have become his signature values. You'd better hide those Ivy League credentials Marty, your people don't allow that sort of nonsense you know. Great post luis.
- WandreyCer
November 24, 2009 at 6:40am
The article is really about the accelerating decline of Dr. Marty Peretz.
- LawrenceGulotta
November 24, 2009 at 9:15am
Mr. Peretz should look closer to home. I'm more worried about the signs of accelerating decline here than in Europe.
- tnmats
November 24, 2009 at 12:44pm
While I think Blair might have been a good pick for the post (for reasons given in The Economist - Europe's need to have a prominent figure to meet with Obama, Hu, etc.), the agonizing over the choice of Rompuy seems overstated. He seems a capable individual with skill at building concensus - essential in the EU. As for the EU's future, please keep in mind that Rompuy and Ashton are the first people to fill their respective posts, but not the last. The next occupants may be higher-profile figures. Finally, because I lived in Brussels for a year, I must speak up for the Belgians. Flemish/Walloon disputes make the headlines, but daily experience was much more harmonious. Adding to sdemuth's comment above, Brussels is a delightful place to live, with wonderful food, museums, music. (Not that those things make Rompuy any more qualified to lead Europe, but Brussels sometimes gets a bad rap from those who don't know it well.) As for the stable currency, the Euro has actually made it a little harder for Belgian parliamentarians. It used to be that if they were having trouble forming a government, someone would point out that the Belgian Franc would suffer if things dragged on for too long - focusing minds on the task. Nowadays, the Euro doesn't take a dive if Belgium takes months to form a government....but the Euro does act as an inducement to European cooperation.
- baxterjones
November 24, 2009 at 3:23pm
I can only imagine what it must have been like for the Neanderthals, tens of thousands of years ago, as multitudes of H. sapiens (with, by some accounts, smaller brains!) poured in from northern Africa, moved into the Parisian suburbs, set about to establish their caliphate, and ruined Europe. A once-great continent has, sadly, never been the same. And blackie: the metric system is flawed on its face. Overreliance on the decimal system is mythological numerology at its most egregious. A continent that once ruled the planet--well, the part of the planet anybody who's anybody cares about--takes up the metric system and suddenly has to play catch-up to America, China, Trinidad-and-Tobago etc. Coincidence?
- williamyard
November 24, 2009 at 5:13pm