PATTEN
Lord Patten, who spoke in Melbourne yesterday as part of the World According to Bush series hosted by the Australian Institute of International Affairs, said recent US foreign policy was the most radical in living memory and it had sullied the United States' reputation.
"I hope that that superpower will return to a more traditional attitude to its own global attitude, and will recognise that the approach taken for the 50 years after the Second World War was the right one for the rest of us," he said.
"There has been a quantitative shift under this Administration because the neo-cons won the battle of ideas in Washington think-tanks, in academia, in the media, in the years between 1992 and 2000 … to borrow a phrase from (former US secretary of state James) Baker, we have a dog in this fight. We have an interest in the neo-cons being seen off and a more traditional approach to American foreign policy being successful."
Lord Patten has been sceptical about the need for the US and Britain to invade Iraq. Yesterday he contrasted the Iraq invasion with the Suez crisis of 1956, in which British forces withdrew from Egypt after US threats to destabilise the British pound.
Vice-President Dick Cheney is singled out in his book. Lord Patten writes: "Mr Cheney does not do style. He is two fingers to style … aggressively nationalist, conspiratorial, the patron of the Washington branch of the (Israeli) Likud party."
The harshest critics of US foreign policy were not Europeans or Australians, he said. "The most acerbic criticisms are being made by former members of the Republican foreign policy establishment."
KERRY O'BRIEN: In your book you talk about Iraq policy being made over the heads of the British Foreign Office and the US State Department. What do you mean by that and what was the effect?
LORD PATTEN: In Washington, plainly, Colin Powell was cut out of the action and anybody who might have offered a few words of caution actually Colin Powell - if anybody knew about invasions and the use of the military, it was him, but he was sidelined by the assertive Nationalists, by Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld on the one hand and what General Powell reportedly called the "f-ing crazies" on the other, the neocons. In Britain, I think Mr Blair, who has great charm, overestimates his abilities on the international stage. You can't charm people out of their own view of their national interest and certainly I don't think he ever had the detailed grasp of the issues that one might have liked. I think he saw the whole issue simply through the prism of what he believed should be Britain's relationship with the United States, an ally partner who asks no questions, but was prepared to act as number one spear carrier and number one explainer of America's intentions to Europe's wimps and I think that was fatal and led him into a posture which lost him the most important attribute in politics in any country, that is the benefit of the doubt as far as the electorate is concerned.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Have the London bombings changed your views on Britain's involvement in the war on terror in any way, shape or form?
LORD PATTEN: No, they haven't. Largely - if you don't mind me putting it this way - largely because I've never really seen it as a 'war on terror'. I don't think you have wars on proper nouns. I think all of us will find ourselves for the next as far ahead as we can see dealing with those who can create mayhem by using technology to murder, kill, maim people. I've spent much of my life dealing with Irish terrorism. Most recently reorganising the police service in Northern Ireland as part of the Belfast Agreement. I'm not remotely one of those who thinks that you can fudge the distinction between terrorist violence and legitimate political action. You have to try to understand what motivates terrorism. I do think you have to try to understand and deal with the sense of alienation which creates an environment in which terrorists operate.
KERRY O'BRIEN: You're critical of George Bush's foreign policy, but you're not one of those, it seems, who questions his intellectual capacity on your meetings with him. You say in the book after meeting Mr Bush several times that you not only found him very confident of what he was about and what he was saying and doing and so on, you never found yourself disliking the man. You say, "It is usually easier in politics if you dislike the person as well as the words, so I guess I feel more comfortable with Vice-President Cheney."
LORD PATTEN: Quite so.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Why do you dislike Dick Cheney?
LORD PATTEN: I think he gives conservatism a bad name. I think he associates conservatism with making rich people even richer, with more perks for the corporate world, with the most assertive sorts of nationalism. If you look at things - the arguments at the moment, America 2001 had the huge sympathy of the world after the attacks on New York and Washington. Now, three years down the road, four years down the road, we see the Administration, particularly Vice-President Cheney, trying to prevent Senator McCain writing into American law the fact that Americans don't torture people. So America is on the back foot on human rights issues. America, which stood for and argued for Helsinki and the sort of approach to human rights which eventually helped us sink the Soviet Union. How have they got themselves into this mess? They've got themselves into this mess because of that implaccable ultra-conservative presence at President Bush's right hand and I think that it's a pity that the President doesn't listen more to his father and less to Vice-President Cheney.
KERRY O'BRIEN: As you look around the world, how many leaders can you say you actually admire?
LORD PATTEN: Well, it's a very good question. Of the ones that I've met, I worked for one - I didn't always agree with her - but I worked for one, Margaret Thatcher, whom I admired, because she did combine a sense of ideas and principles with the ability to get things done. I admired Zhu Rongji, not because I admired China's human rights record, but because he seemed to me to be a colossal bulldozer of a politician. I greatly admired, in Europe, Chancellor Kohl because he had that political ability to know when politicians have a really historic decision and to get that decision right. I think he was almost single-handedly responsible for - well, with Gorbachev for German unification and the three people that have most charmed me have all been black - have been Nelson Mandela and Kofi Annan and Colin Powell, all of whom have that combination of grace and authority, which is what charisma actually means. I think Colin Powell is a slightly tragic figure because of the way he became - because of the way he was used by the Administration which he served. In Europe at the moment, I have to say that I think we draw pretty much of a blank when it comes to great leaders.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Chris Patten, thanks very much for talking with us.
LORD PATTEN: Thank you very much.
"I hope that that superpower will return to a more traditional attitude to its own global attitude, and will recognise that the approach taken for the 50 years after the Second World War was the right one for the rest of us," he said.
"There has been a quantitative shift under this Administration because the neo-cons won the battle of ideas in Washington think-tanks, in academia, in the media, in the years between 1992 and 2000 … to borrow a phrase from (former US secretary of state James) Baker, we have a dog in this fight. We have an interest in the neo-cons being seen off and a more traditional approach to American foreign policy being successful."
Lord Patten has been sceptical about the need for the US and Britain to invade Iraq. Yesterday he contrasted the Iraq invasion with the Suez crisis of 1956, in which British forces withdrew from Egypt after US threats to destabilise the British pound.
Vice-President Dick Cheney is singled out in his book. Lord Patten writes: "Mr Cheney does not do style. He is two fingers to style … aggressively nationalist, conspiratorial, the patron of the Washington branch of the (Israeli) Likud party."
The harshest critics of US foreign policy were not Europeans or Australians, he said. "The most acerbic criticisms are being made by former members of the Republican foreign policy establishment."
KERRY O'BRIEN: In your book you talk about Iraq policy being made over the heads of the British Foreign Office and the US State Department. What do you mean by that and what was the effect?
LORD PATTEN: In Washington, plainly, Colin Powell was cut out of the action and anybody who might have offered a few words of caution actually Colin Powell - if anybody knew about invasions and the use of the military, it was him, but he was sidelined by the assertive Nationalists, by Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld on the one hand and what General Powell reportedly called the "f-ing crazies" on the other, the neocons. In Britain, I think Mr Blair, who has great charm, overestimates his abilities on the international stage. You can't charm people out of their own view of their national interest and certainly I don't think he ever had the detailed grasp of the issues that one might have liked. I think he saw the whole issue simply through the prism of what he believed should be Britain's relationship with the United States, an ally partner who asks no questions, but was prepared to act as number one spear carrier and number one explainer of America's intentions to Europe's wimps and I think that was fatal and led him into a posture which lost him the most important attribute in politics in any country, that is the benefit of the doubt as far as the electorate is concerned.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Have the London bombings changed your views on Britain's involvement in the war on terror in any way, shape or form?
LORD PATTEN: No, they haven't. Largely - if you don't mind me putting it this way - largely because I've never really seen it as a 'war on terror'. I don't think you have wars on proper nouns. I think all of us will find ourselves for the next as far ahead as we can see dealing with those who can create mayhem by using technology to murder, kill, maim people. I've spent much of my life dealing with Irish terrorism. Most recently reorganising the police service in Northern Ireland as part of the Belfast Agreement. I'm not remotely one of those who thinks that you can fudge the distinction between terrorist violence and legitimate political action. You have to try to understand what motivates terrorism. I do think you have to try to understand and deal with the sense of alienation which creates an environment in which terrorists operate.
KERRY O'BRIEN: You're critical of George Bush's foreign policy, but you're not one of those, it seems, who questions his intellectual capacity on your meetings with him. You say in the book after meeting Mr Bush several times that you not only found him very confident of what he was about and what he was saying and doing and so on, you never found yourself disliking the man. You say, "It is usually easier in politics if you dislike the person as well as the words, so I guess I feel more comfortable with Vice-President Cheney."
LORD PATTEN: Quite so.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Why do you dislike Dick Cheney?
LORD PATTEN: I think he gives conservatism a bad name. I think he associates conservatism with making rich people even richer, with more perks for the corporate world, with the most assertive sorts of nationalism. If you look at things - the arguments at the moment, America 2001 had the huge sympathy of the world after the attacks on New York and Washington. Now, three years down the road, four years down the road, we see the Administration, particularly Vice-President Cheney, trying to prevent Senator McCain writing into American law the fact that Americans don't torture people. So America is on the back foot on human rights issues. America, which stood for and argued for Helsinki and the sort of approach to human rights which eventually helped us sink the Soviet Union. How have they got themselves into this mess? They've got themselves into this mess because of that implaccable ultra-conservative presence at President Bush's right hand and I think that it's a pity that the President doesn't listen more to his father and less to Vice-President Cheney.
KERRY O'BRIEN: As you look around the world, how many leaders can you say you actually admire?
LORD PATTEN: Well, it's a very good question. Of the ones that I've met, I worked for one - I didn't always agree with her - but I worked for one, Margaret Thatcher, whom I admired, because she did combine a sense of ideas and principles with the ability to get things done. I admired Zhu Rongji, not because I admired China's human rights record, but because he seemed to me to be a colossal bulldozer of a politician. I greatly admired, in Europe, Chancellor Kohl because he had that political ability to know when politicians have a really historic decision and to get that decision right. I think he was almost single-handedly responsible for - well, with Gorbachev for German unification and the three people that have most charmed me have all been black - have been Nelson Mandela and Kofi Annan and Colin Powell, all of whom have that combination of grace and authority, which is what charisma actually means. I think Colin Powell is a slightly tragic figure because of the way he became - because of the way he was used by the Administration which he served. In Europe at the moment, I have to say that I think we draw pretty much of a blank when it comes to great leaders.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Chris Patten, thanks very much for talking with us.
LORD PATTEN: Thank you very much.
posted by professor rat at 12:51 AM
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