BUSH PULLS IT OFF AGAIN

Mark Steyn says that it's a win-win situation

for the President in Palestine, but not for the poor old Europeans

New Hampshire I SEE my colleague Matthew Parris is vainly fighting the old ennui. He is, in a word, Bushed. He can no longer be bothered being pro-American or anti-American; he just wants to tend to his garden.

As it happens, despite being a ferocious pro-Bush warmonger, I feel exactly the same. It's not so much that Britain and America are in disagreement as that they seem to lack the minimal shared assumptions necessary to conduct any kind of rational argument. Alan Watkins in the Independent on Sunday, for example, proposes that Americans should not be invited to Glyndeboume or Covent Garden. I do not think this will unduly discombobulate many members of the Bush administration. The President himself likes to be in bed by nine, so good luck finding a 25-minute opera. I think Matthew was nearer the mark a few months back when he complained that the problem with America was that it was falling into the hands of people who don't throw dinner parties. (I paraphrase.) In Whitehall, meanwhile, 'senior civil servants' brief John Simpson that Bush is 'a bear of very little brain' and that his Middle East speech was 'puerile', 'absurdly ignorant' and 'ludicrous', and Mr Simpson for some reason thinks this is worth passing on to his Sunday Telegraph readers as evidence of a sea-change in Anglo-American relations.

It doesn't really matter what Bush does any more. He's appallingly isolationist except when he's being dangerously interventionist. He's an arrogant, swaggering cowboy except when he's being a shrinking violet. I saw him play the latter role in Alberta a couple of weeks back at the G8 summit. He jetted in, kept a low profile, stood in the back row for most of the group photos, and flew out quietly without giving a press conference. It was the Magnificent Seven plus one non-speaking cowboy extra bringing up the rear. And you've never heard such bitching and moaning from the other guys. 'He's stealing our man's thunder,' complained a Canadian.

'But you'd hardly know he's here,' I said.

'That's my point. Everybody's focusing on how low-key he is. He's stealing our thunder by going to such extreme lengths to be seen not stealing it.' Now, it's true that Bush did everything but turn up in a false beard and check in as Mr Smith, but that's because, aside from shooting a little bilateral breeze with Vlad and Tone, he knew the whole thing was going to be a waste of time. Anyone wondering why the Bush administration pays no attention to its allies should go back to those 'senior civil servants' of Mr Simpson's.

bet Sir Humphrey had been polishing that 'bear of little brain' crack before John showed up: you can almost hear the guy preening as he delivers it But, you know, frankly, the Bush dummy gags are so lastmillennium. Sir Humphrey doing Dubya IQ jokes is like your dad breakdancing: even if he could pull it off, it's still squaresville.

But that's Europe's problem all over, isn't it? There's a terrible reluctance to change the script: the old jokes are the best, and so are the old policies. Obviously, a 'senior civil servant' would find Bush's Middle East speech 'puerile', 'absurdly ignorant' and 'ludicrous'. The President gets up and announces that the present Palestinian leadership is worthless and he'd like to see a new constitution, separation of powers, an autonomous legislature and independent municipal institutions. Independent municipal institutions? In the Middle East? No wonder the Guardian's Jonathan Freedland described it as a 'fantastic speech. That's to say, literally fantastic.' Mr Bush's plan was really a non-plan: all he was saying, like the sign in the McDonald's window, was 'No shirt, no shoes, no service'. You can have terrorism or you can have a state but you can't have both. How 'puerile', how 'absurdly ignorant'. Why, all Bush's 'ludicrous' speech will do is ensure that the Palestinians vote Arafat in by an even huger majority than he would already get.

For the benefit of any senior civil servants who read The Spectator, a short recap may be helpful.

6 April: In a Spectator story headlined 'Say goodbye, Yasser Arafat', right-wing madman Mark Steyn says that 'Arafat will never be president of a Palestinian state and has begun his countdown to oblivion'.

24 June: In a speech in Washington, President Bush says much the same thing.

30 June: Arafat offers to meet Bush 'any time, anywhere', but Colin Powell — Mis ter Moderate patiently points out on US TV that that offer is well past its sell-by date: Arafat won't be meeting no one, no time, nowhere, no how. The London-based newspaper Al-Hayat reports, 'It appeared yesterday that US efforts to replace President Arafat are gaining momentum. Some well-informed Palestinian sources revealed to Al-Hayat that some US parties "offered" several Palestinian personalities the post of "prime minister" during the last few days.'

1 July: Arafat flunkey Saeb Erekat criticises Arabs for 'their strange silence on Bush's speech'. President Mubarak, asked whether Egypt is working with Washington on replacing Arafat, says only that he has not 'discussed that with US officials'. Four thousand demonstrators storm Arafat's Gaza headquarters chanting, 'We want jobs! We want food!'

3 July: Two officials fired by Arafat refuse to accept their dismissals.

4 July: Oman's pro-government AlWatan newspaper runs a story headlined 'Is Arafat the Weakest Link?'

6 July: In the latest Arafat order to be ignored by his subordinates, Palestinian security officers tell the Chairman that the man he's appointed as their new leader is unacceptable.

7 July: A source within the Israeli General Staff says it's concluded that Arafat's stature is dropping so precipitously that there is no need for Israel to push him out of the territories'. He will, they say, 'be displaced within six months'.

8 July: the Jordanian magazine Al-Majd reports that Yasser Arafat is 'expected to step down in the coming weeks'.

Yasser Arafat isn't just toast, he's buttered, covered in Marmite and being dipped in the soft-boiled egg of history. Bush knows it, Israel knows it, the Egyptians, Saudis, Jordanians and Syrians know it, Hamas knows it, Arafat's cronies know it, and ol' man Yasser knows it. The only folks who haven't figured it out are senior British civil servants, European foreign ministers and, alas, readers of The Spectator, who, responding to an online poll asking 'Is President Bush right to call for the removal of Yasser Arafat?', voted six to one against. Oh, and the Danish Prime Minister who, speaking in his capacity as the EU's new Queen-for-a-day, has requested an urgent meeting with the US to get 'the peace process' 'back on track'.

By 'peace process', our Danish friend means 'Oslo'. Sorry, pal. That show's been cancelled. For the last two-and-a-half weeks we've been in the post-Oslo era, but the EU's still standing around wearing footer bags in cricket season. The only thing that's 'puerile' about all this is those snot-nosed Brit civil servants who can manage no more insightful reaction to an extraordinary moment in Middle Eastern affairs than to make lame-o Winnie-the-Pooh cracks. The ground is shifting under your feet: if you want to wind up in the heffalump pit while the world passes you by, carry on.

At the G8 meeting it was fascinating to see the other delegations react to Washington's eve-of-summit spanner in the works. Mr Bush didn't bother giving anyone a head's-up on the speech, it being much more fun just to deliver it and then watch the rest of the gang scramble to reposition themselves. A few hours after the Bush speech, Canada's Jean Chretien was asked what he thought of it and said that he could not reply because he had not yet been briefed; by the following morning, the Chretien position on Arafat had subtly evolved: he now had no view on the fellow one way or the other. Tony Blair managed to come up with a form of words that left him looking less like an incompetent boob — obviously, it's for the Palestinian people to decide, blah blah — but no one knows better than Tone how perennially disappointing Arafat is. But Mr Blair was essentially following the same trajectory as his Canadian colleague: moving towards the new American position while trying to give the impression that he's always been there. The Continentals, on the other hand, seem to be the last people on the planet who believe that Yasser really is Chairman-for-Life.

M. Chirac needs to get with the programme. Best case scenario: Arafat runs in 2003 and is elected to a Palestinian presidency stripped of all power — like President Vossname of Germany or President O'ItlIcometome of Ireland. Worst case scenario: carried out by the handles. To Bush, either solution will do. Some rare Palestinian 'moderates' (the term is relative: I mean progressive types who think suicide-bomber classes shouldn't start till junior high) might yet emerge. On the other hand, some toxic Arafat lieutenant or Hamas honcho might carry the day. Doesn't matter: an unashamed terrorist would be easier to deal with than a frontman for terrorists.

To the realpolitik set, the Arafat equation was very simple: a strongman state was a better bet than a weak democracy doomed to collapse into chaos. But, in launching the intifada, Yasser blew up his own raison d'être. You can't warn Apres moi le deluge' when the deluge is already in full flood. There will be disreputable fellows at the heart of the Palestinian question for some years to come, but never again will the Palestinian people's future

be mortgaged to one man for decade after decade after decade.

As to the Europeans' assumption that Bush, merely by advising them not to, will provoke the Palestinians into voting for the grizzled old loser: this assumes that the West Bank and Gaza electors are as unsophisticated as those of Greater London, who voted for Red Ken just to spite Mr Blair and are now paying the price (£1260 per annum). But, in any case, the hypothesis is a false one: when the election comes, Chairman Arafat will not be a candidate.

For Bush, it's a win-win situation. If the Palestinians elect the Hamas crowd, he can say, 'Fine, I respect your choice. Call me back when you decide to put self-government before self-detonation.' If they opt for plausible state and municipal legislators. Bush will have re-established an important principle: that when the Americans sign on to nation-building they do so only to bring into being functioning democratic, civilised states — as they did with postwar Germany and Japan. Who's to say it couldn't work in Palestine? Not being a colonial power, the Americans don't have that win-a-few-lose-afew attitude — here a Canada, there a Zimbabwe — that the British have. So the Bush plan is perfect: heads we win, tails you lose. That's also how some of these other international questions are being framed: heads, the International Criminal Court will be modified to our satisfaction; tails, we won't have to do any more lousy UN peacekeeping.

The question Matthew Parris might like to ask as he weeds his borders is why could no European leader make a speech like that? How did it come about that the entire EU reflexively stuck with an aging terrorist who cancelled the last scheduled elections? Which bear is really the one with the little brain? The one who in under three weeks has changed the dynamic of the Palestinian question? Or the one whose gags are as stale as his world view?

Europeans expend an awful lot of energy explaining why nothing can change: it's 'absurdly ignorant' even to suggest getting rid of Arafat; it's preposterous to pursue 'crackpot' (John Simpson) plans for missile defence because it would 'humiliate' the Russians. But Bush went ahead, and the Russians are fine about it, and Yasser's packing, and, behind the scenes, the Aussies and Canucks and not a few others are relieved that the unilateralist cowboy has killed Kyoto. Bush tosses a pebble in the water and the ripples spread across the take; the EU drops a huge rock of conventional wisdom and it sinks without trace. I've said before that, if America is Coke, the world could use a Pepsi. If the EU doesn't have the will to fulfil that role militarily, it could at least try to do it intellectually, with a bit of fresh creative thinking about some of these issues. But instead it clings to 1970s terrorists, 1970s missile treaties and 1970s environmental doommongering. Poor old Europe: never mind walking the walk, it can't even talk the talk.