U.S. President George W. Bush delivered a philippic last week at the NATO summit in Prague, comparing Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler and calling on America's allies to join his crusade against Iraq.
Who says history doesn't repeat itself?
Flashback to 480 BC. Ultimatum from Persia to Athens: "Emperor Xerxes orders you to surrender your weapons and become an ally."
Message from Xerxes to his satraps - subordinate rulers within the mighty Persian Empire:
"I intend to ... march against Greece, and thereby gain vengeance on the Athenians who have wronged Persia and dared to injure me and my father!"
Ten years earlier, Xerxes' father, Darius, had attacked Athens but failed to crush the defiant little state. Now Xerxes was summoning his satraps to finish the job, warning that Athens was a threat to the entire civilized world.
Flash forward 2,482 years to Prague. Bush's cartoon characterization of Saddam Hussein as a second Hitler plays well in unworldly Peoria and the U.S. Bible Belt, but it produced derision or dismay among sophisticated continental Europeans, many of whom regard the sabre-rattling, imperial-minded Bush administration as more alarming than Iraq or Osama bin Laden.
Undaunted by such concerns, President Bush forged ahead with plans, first presented last September, to press NATO to deploy a 20,000-man rapid reaction force composed of European, Turkish, and Canadian troops whose prime mission would be to attack "rogue states, Islamic militants, and any other violators of the 'Pax Americana.'"
Subordinate 'allies' Washington is demanding its subordinate "allies" contribute troops whenever it so orders, just like Darius, Xerxes, and every feudal system and empire in history.
The British, ever the moon to America's sun, and the seven small former Soviet-ruled East European states just invited to join NATO, eagerly volunteered token troop contributions, but the rest of Europe was deeply troubled by the prospect of what the late West German defence minister Franz Josef Strauss aptly called "playing foot soldier to America's atomic knights."
After half a century of being an obedient junior partner to the U.S. (France excepted), a now united Europe is timidly asserting its independence, the most recent example being Germany's refusal to obey Bush's "ukase" to join his anti-Iraq jihad.
The European Union is struggling to form a 50,000-man European intervention force that America clearly sees as a rival to its own plan for a U.S.-directed Euro "rogue state" SWAT team. Europe's reaction force is designed for peacekeeping; the Bush administration wants its Euro-force to fight America's enemies.
The White House pushed hard for admission to NATO of militarily feeble Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia. This was primarily because the U.S. needs their air bases as refuelling and logistical waypoints on an air bridge that extends from North America to new, permanent U.S. bases in the Mideast and Afghanistan.
These economically weak nations are quickly becoming U.S. dependencies, replacing increasingly "undependable" European allies like France and Germany. Even so, few noticed that the admission of these four states, plus Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, would likely weaken instead of strengthening NATO by draining rather than adding to its military resources, and making its least capable members vulnerable to an inevitably resurgent Russia. As Frederick the Great observed, "He who defends everything, defends nothing."
Equally interesting was the dog that didn't bark: Russia. After Prague, Bush hurried off to see "my friend Vladimir Putin" to assure him that a western military alliance smack on Russia's western border and St. Petersburg was no threat at all, but somehow a benefit.
The reason the Russian dog didn't bark was twofold: Russia's military remains weak and absorbed by the bloody war in Chechnya; Putin and his supporters are heavily dependent on discreet U.S. funding to maintain their power and keep their cash-strapped government running.
At their meeting, the two leaders also likely finalized plans for Iraq: Putin would not stand in the way of an American invasion in exchange for Russian oil firms retaining their large drilling concessions in northern Iraq, and an honorarium from Uncle Sam of at least US $12 billion.
Flashback to 480 BC.
Xerxes: "At last I have found a way whereby we may at once win glory, get possession of a rich land and obtain satisfaction and revenge."
Epilogue: To everyone's surprise, the irksome Greeks ("Grecians" to George W. Bush) won.
Eric can be reached by e-mail at margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com.
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com or visit his home page.
Copyright 2002 Toronto Sun, November 24, 2002