Reply #5: With friends like Bush who needs enemies? [View All]

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1020621,00.html

Diplomatically, the gains of many decades have been frittered away by our blind obedience to the American administration's wars. Huge numbers of people view the British prime minister as Bush's poodle, and see Britain as no more than the errand boy for the American neo-conservatives. What price British influence in the world if Albion has no influence with its American godfather?

For that is the case. We have next to no influence with the US administration. If we did, we would surely have demanded some quid pro quo for our loyal support to America in its military adventives. Perhaps some flexibility would have been forthcoming on the Kyoto protocol or on America's development of nuclear weapons. Not a chance. We continue to cravenly support all things American-inspired, whether missile defence or a distorting World Trade Organisation. In return, the prime minister receives plaudits from Congress delivered in a manner reminiscent of Beijing's Great Hall of the People. As America's love affair with Tony Blair blossoms, the world - and the UK's place within it -becomes less stable.

What an ignominious way we have begun the 21st century - as a satrapy of the new American world order. Old friends despair as old rivals mock this once-proud nation. No longer is it able to hold its head up as a free-thinking, sovereign state.

We are now viewed as a rather ignoble island, subservient to the world's superpower, and incapable of committing itself to its natural home within Europe. The irony of our position is that, as we further alienate our friends, including those in America who look for constructive criticism rather than sycophancy, so we reinforce the prejudices of our enemies. Thus do nations dwindle into insignificance and irrelevance.