In a discussion on a friend's journal, I made a comment about the outcome of Dubya’s UN diplomacy that I think has now been proven wrong. I said:
As an aside, I find the attribution of some Security Council’s members’ opposition to the Iraq war to Dubya’s bad manners rather trivializing as well. It seems to me that holdout states, particularly France and Russia, had very clear national interests at stake in avoiding the war. We won’t really know for sure until everyone’s written their memoirs, but it could well be that France, Russia, and Germany had no intention of ever publicly signing off on it under any possible diplomatic circumstances. If that was the case, then Dubya erred primarily in going to the UN at all. Instead, after quietly sounding these states about their likely commitments, he could have gone ahead with the war without ever forcing them to publicly oppose us in the UN arena. Without that embarrassing meltdown, opposing states may have been more inclined to have provided assistance in at least ameliorating the outcome of a war they had not supported, during the brief feel-good moment after Firdas Square. My own reading of the UN debacle was that Dubya went through the process as a method of providing political cover for Tony Blair, in the belief (correct in my opinion) that Britain was our most materially valuable potential ally. I agree that it would have been much better to have had more international support for the occupation phase of the war, but I have no idea how both goals could have been realized at once.
However, since that moment just after the capture of Baghdad, it has become quite clear that the cost of Coalition membership is rather high. France, Germany, and Russia can expect some percentage of any soldiers they send to die in Iraq, and some number of their own citizens to die at home in punitive Islamist terrorist strikes. I can’t think of a single reason why they should volunteer for these costs when they know that a much wealthier and militarily strong nation is already stuck with the bill. If either [Sandy] Berger or Kerry can think of one, apart from "we’re nicer," I’d love to hear it.
But today, I came across this news story (via Totten) about French and German intentions with respect to Iraq. The relevant quotes:
French and German government officials say they will not significantly increase military assistance in Iraq even if John Kerry, the Democratic presidential challenger, is elected on November 2...
In fact, high-ranking German officials are privately concerned at the prospect of Mr Kerry becoming president, arguing it would not change US demands but make it more difficult to reject them.
So maybe the UN debacle was a favor rather than an embarrassment to European hold-out states after all, functioning as a sort of face-saving cover for their attention to their own interests in Iraq--chiefly (but not limited to) economic interests, chiefly (but not limited to) oil.
Which suggests a missed opportunity for a catchy protest slogan:
NO BUSH HATING FOR OIL
Oh, I amuse myself.
Update: A friend commented that the attitude of France and Germany on Iraq seems to be: "You broke it, you fix it." Mr. Bell Jar said, "That's pretty rich, coming from France and Germany."