It is so disheartening to witness the sad desperateness of unrequited love. That is what makes Democratic candidate John Kerry’s obsessive and obsequious need for European approval so unrealistic and forlornly delusional.
When did the Europeans exhibit the greatest affection for the United States in the last few years? It did so immediately after 3000 people were killed at the World Trade Center buildings in New York, the Pentagon, and on a lonely field in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. Mixed in with genuine sympathy and compassion on the part of many Europeans was a little too much smugness on the part of European elites. There was a little too much sang freud that perhaps America had received its just retribution and overdue comeuppance for its arrogant and self-important foreign policy, particularly its support of Israel. Contradictorily, there was also the suggestion in a French bestseller that the tragedy of September 11 was planned and executed by the US itself as a way to put Americans on war footing.
While certainly there are many Europeans who love and admire Americans on a person-to-person level, European political opinion will not be satisfied with the United States unless it unilaterally opens trade barriers to help the overburdened European social welfare state. European elites will not be satisfied unless Americans bear the burden of Western military spending and loss of life, used only at discretion and the forbearance of Europeans, like in Bosnia. European governments will be pleased so long as the unruly and uncultured Americans listen to their betters.
In a recent speech on Iraq, Kerry insisted that he would persuade Europeans to share the burden in Iraq. While some like the British and the Italians certainly have already contributed very substantially in resources and blood, Kerry is in a jilted lover’s fantasy if he sincerely believes that the French and Germans will ever donate enough troops or money to materially effect the situation in Iraq. It is possible that Kerry does not believe this, but is making the promise for political effect, so Kerry’s position reduces to excessive credulity or lack of credibility.
By degrading the legitimate preference for French and German support to self-abasement, Kerry is setting up the United States for the morning-after disillusionment. Americans best not permit the siren’s song of European love and approval to seduce Americans to overlook their congenital allegiance to the spread of liberty and democracy and the necessity to defend those interests.