“Neo-conservative” is, in most of Europe, a term of insult. It puts the individual so designated in the frame for the horrors of Iraq; it identifies them with an American president and administration thought by most Europeans to be extreme; and it implicitly dismisses any rationale for the position - spreading democracy, for example - as a cover for the plunder of oil, the expansion of the American empire, or Zionism (about which no more need be said).
The vilifying of the neo-conservative impulse has the effect of making it illegitimate to think through - at least in public - the up- and downsides of what has been the most ambitious and dramatic reshaping of foreign policy in the west since the end of the cold war. It is self-defeating politically, for the taboo that surrounds it prohibits all but the boldest politicians from proclaiming an interest, and thus narrows discussion and constrains policy formation. And such a constraint is at the worst possible time. All over the west, governments in office are weak, new governments-in-waiting are ramping themselves up for power and, in most cases, there is no clarity about what they believe should be done in foreign policy.
In most countries of Europe, there is still a shuffling away from any commitment to assist in Iraq. No one will commit more soldiers, and the Italian contingent of some 3,000 carabinieri in Nasariya will be withdrawn if the left takes power next spring. Nicolas Sarkozy burnished his credentials as a toughie during the riots in France, but he’s given no sign that his foreign policy would extend to agreeing with a strategy of spreading democracy.
In the US, the attacks on the Bush administration increase, from both liberals and conservatives. Will a future Republican candidate pick up Bush’s baton and remain as wedded to exporting democracy as he has been? And will a Democratic candidate craft a version of it? The answer to these questions might be, first, he will if he’s John McCain and, second, she will if she’s Hillary Clinton. But there’s no way of knowing.
If the US is the most important country in this regard, the UK is the most intriguing. Of the Labour cabinet, probably only one would have taken the decision to support the US so wholeheartedly in Iraq - and he was prime minister. When and if he succeeds Tony Blair, will Gordon Brown, as quietly and quickly as possible, seek to wind down the British exposure in Iraq? Will he tack towards a “realist” view of foreign involvement - concentrating on Britain’s interests and pursuing them with democracies and dictatorships alike?
Still more intriguing is the position that a Conservative leader might take. John Major’s Conservative government was an ultra-realist one: its foreign secretaries - Douglas (now Lord) Hurd and Sir Malcolm Rifkind - were scornful of involvement in the Balkans, however much harried by the “something-must-be-done brigade”. Sir Malcolm, back in the Commons after a seven-year gap and a game loser in the leadership stakes, will count for something in his party: he remains vehemently opposed to anything that smacks of idealism in foreign policy, pointing to the results of the Iraq intervention to make his point. Liam Fox, the current shadow foreign secretary, is not of Sir Malcolm’s tendency, but he is also not sure of continuing in the job.
Thus there’s much to play for and, to make the play more interesting, a new society was recently launched at a crowded, sweaty reception in the House of Commons. The Henry Jackson Society is named for the US congressman who insisted that US governments consider the internal character of the states with which they deal. The society is seeking to occupy the ground of an intellectual buttress for these ideas which have come to be known as neo-conservative: a ground crowded in the US, but empty in Europe.
It believes that “only modern liberal democracies are truly legitimate”; that they should “set an example to which the rest of the world should aspire”; and a “forward strategy” should be adopted “to assist these countries that are not yet liberal and democratic to become so”. This strategy would include, under certain conditions, force; and that strong militaries be maintained in Europe, the US and other democracies “armed with expeditionary capabilities and a global reach”. Dominated, but not monopolised, by Conservatives, the society hasn’t many of the Tory twitch issues: it believes, for example, in “furtherance of European military modernisation and integration”.
Its main movers are a mix of academics and policy wonks, with a few MPs. The Tories are led by Michael Gove, a former Times journalist and among the brightest of the 2005 intake. Labour is headed up by Gisela Stuart, the determined, German-born former junior health minister who, with the former European minister Denis MacShane, are the only two of the party’s MPs willing to put their signatures to the founding statement. Labour supporters among the organisers and signatories include the banker-writer Oliver Kamm and Cambridge historian Brendan Simms.
Let’s hope they succeed. The European debate has become a cynical one - high on ritual denunciations of Bush and, to a lesser extent, Blair; low on acceptance of responsibility for what happens in the world. The weakness of most of its member states’ governments makes arriving at a European view even more a matter of the lowest common denominator than usual. The spirit of Henry Jackson may be the ghost of a foreign policy yet to come.
