by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n W<\/span>e’ve come a long way from the 2003 British lectures about American obtrusive Ray-Bans and Kevlar losing what British soft hats and smiles had won.<\/p>\n That quote about defeat from “a senior U.S. official” about the British withdrawal from southern Iraq is probably accurate, but it belongs to a larger, more disturbing context:<\/p>\n (1) the popular British anger at the U.S. (whether evidenced by the “poodle” slur or the latest Pew poll finding that a bare majority of British subjects approves of the U.S.); There is a logic here: the more the U.S. seeks to be a partner with Britain in harm’s way where it is ill-equipped, uncomfortable and thus bound to be humiliated, the more it resents America for doing so.<\/p>\n The unspoken truth is that just as there is no real military alliance called NATO, so too there is no Anglo-American “alliance.” Both, of course, can serve as valuable psychological props, and continue in name through tradition and ennui, but neither amounts to anything militarily or even much politically anymore. We should accept that “getting the Brits or Europeans on board” at best means a few platitudes at the U.N .<\/p>\n The irony?<\/p>\n Continued Anglo-European distance from the U.S. transpires at exactly the time that the world is getting more dangerous for an unarmed Europe from rising Chinese and Russian nationalism, Iranian theocracy, and Islamic extremism \u2014 while U.S .public support for basing troops in the U.K. and Europe is at an all-time low.<\/p>\n To read contemporary journalism is to learn of Russian anger at Eastern Europe and E.U. morality lectures, Chinese frustration with E.U. tariffs, al Qaeda’s hatred of a soft, ‘decadent’ European lifestyle, and missile proximity to Tehran \u2014 and a growing American weariness with all of the above.<\/p>\n For Britain and Europe, it is a classic case of “be careful of what you wish for…”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a92007 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “The British have basically been defeated in the South.” by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner We’ve come a long way from the 2003 British lectures about American obtrusive Ray-Bans and Kevlar losing what British soft hats and smiles had won.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[755],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-Vp","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3667,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-world-of-difference\/","url_meta":{"origin":3559,"position":0},"title":"A World of Difference","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Can General Petraeus turn was in Iraq around? by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The verdict on four years of fighting in Iraq hinges on the events of the next few months. 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\n(2) a growing acknowledgement of British weakness and appeasement, as exemplified not just by the escape from Iraq, but everything from the coddling of radical Islamists in London to the humiliation of the British navy by Iran.<\/p>\n