The whole truth, please
The Prime Minister's speech on foreign policy at the Mansion House this week was a classic instance of reassurance rhetoric: his intention to soothe Atlanticists on both sides of the ocean, worried by the studied distance Mr Brown adopted at Camp David in July and the mixed signals sent by his ministerial team. Tribute was paid to `the personal leadership of President Bush' in the search for peace in the Middle East and the American alliance was reaffirmed as 'our most important bilateral relationship'. Even Tony Blair was rehabilitated for the occasion, with a tribute to his 'painstaking work' in the Middle East.
There were more than just warm words for Mr Blair, though. The whole speech could be read as a measured defence and continuation of Blairite foreign policy and the belief that Britain's security ultimately depends on the spread of its values. Comparing this text to David Cameron's recent Berlin address rejecting liberal interventionism and pledging to put 'national security fffsf , it is clear who — in the field of foreign policy at least — is the true heir to Blair.
The speech showed Mr Brown to be like his old friend and rival in another way, too. As Mr Blair so often did, Mr Brown left both sides with the impression that he agreed with them. The multilateralists were told that `the underlying issue for our country — indeed for every country — is how together in this new interdependent world we renew and strengthen our international rules, institutions and networks.' Those who worry that pledges to reform the United Nations, worthy though they are, hardly match the urgency of the era were reassured that the Prime Minister understood that while 'resolutions matter, results matter even more'.
Brownite foreign policy — such as it is — has been exemplified by this kind of rhetorical balancing act and the procrastination it entails. The cost of this hesitation, though, is that other countries are stealing a march on Britain. Nicolas Sarkozy appears determined to replace Mr Blair as America's Ally Number One — and is going the right way about it.
Nowhere was Mr Brown's equivocation more apparent than on Iran. Tehran was told that it risked 'confrontation with the international community' if it did not abandon both its nuclear ambitions and its support for terrorism. Well, yes. But Mr Brown immediately hedged even this statement of the obvious by saying that the consequences of this confrontation would be 'a tightening of sanctions'. This is rather like saying that the consequence of pregnancy will be an emerging bump: true, but hardly the whole story.
The legacy of Iraq is that no senior British politician dares speak the whole truth about Iran. The choice is stark, as the French have pointed out: prevent Iran from going nuclear by peaceful means, or prepare for war. There is no way, and understandably so, that Israel will allow a state that is explicitly pledged to its destruction and is the quartermaster of Hamas and Hezbollah to develop nuclear weapons. It is equally hard to imagine President Bush — or any of his likely successors — allowing such a flagrant state sponsor of terror to establish a nuclear imperium in the Middle East.
Tougher sanctions are overdue and should be tried. Iran is one of the few countries where British diplomacy still carries serious weight and that advantage must be prosecuted to the fullest possible extent It is idle to pretend that the aftermath of any military strike on Iran would be anything other than terrible: no matter how sophisticated and 'surgical' the technology deployed, the geopolitical consequences of an attack on Iran would stretch from Kabul to Whitechapel.
It is no less idle, however, to think that sanctions are certain to achieve their objective. Realistically, the Security Council, with its Russian and Chinese vetoes, is unlikely to pass resolutions sufficiently aggressive to make Tehran think again. In these circumstances, and with oil at around $100 a barrel, it is far from certain that Iran would back down — even if the European Union caught up with the Americans and imposed stringent sanctions on investment in Iran's oil and gas sectors and barred financial transactions. The removal as Iran's nuclear negotiator of Ali Larijani, who believed that Tehran should talk out the clock, suggests that the internal balance has shifted to those who are convinced that Iraq is the Iranian window of opportunity, and want to make a dash for the bomb.
This raises the pressing question of what, precisely, Britain should do if sanctions are not sufficient. This is something that neither main party wants to discuss openly and fully, as it splits both of them wide open. Mr Cameron is increasingly emerging as an old-fashioned Conservative realist in the Douglas Hurd tradition: note both his Berlin speech and the appointment of the securocrat Dame Pauline Neville-Jones to the Tory fi-ontbench. But Mr Cameron's two closest allies in the shadow Cabinet, George Osborne and Michael Gove, have a quite different view of the world, grasping the daunting scale and challenge of the struggle against Islamism: a view that Mr Cameron initially appeared to share during his leadership campaign in 2005. Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, is also deeply exercised by Iran's nuclear ambitions. It is hard to see how these men could condemn the Prime Minister if he chose to support the United States in addressing this threat.
Mr Brown, though, knows such a decision would force him to choose between the special relationship with America and his special relationship with the Labour party. The party would erupt if another of its leaders joined President Bush in launching a fresh military strike in the Middle East Labour backbenchers would be only marginally more forgiving if the Commander-in-Chief was, say, the newly elected Democrat President, Hillary Clinton.
The political case for caution is strong, but the imperative for leadership should be stronger still for a statesman. If Mr Brown and Mr Cameron want Britain to play the role on the world stage that its seat on the Security Council and history demand, then they will have to start thinking beyond sanctions and party management. Mr Blair was roundly accused of blindly following President Bush. But the present uncertainty — wait and see, in effect — risks reducing this country to the ignominious position of being able to respond only to the proposals of others. Britain may soon discover what it feels like to be a poodle, in the truest sense.
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