Former Spanish Prime Minister Aznar spoke at Hillsdale College last October 25. After reading his speech, I can only hope that he is also the future Spanish Prime Minister. Here’s a brief excerpt:
It is often said that Europe always leans towards the soft option because it lacks the military power to do otherwise. The truth is that, at some recent point in our history, Europeans in general have chosen, either consciously or unconsciously, to separate diplomatic from military means, favoring conciliation over pressure and force. We refuse to call things by their proper names; we refuse to accept that there really are people prepared to die in order to kill us; we refuse to recognize our enemies, both at home and abroad.
We are engaged in a battle of civilizations against an emerging, assertively political Islam, all over the world. To make ourselves weaker is the best recipe for disaster. Another recipe for disaster would be to distance Europe from the United States.
My thanks to Dave Schuler of The Glittering Eye for bringing this to my attention.
Heck with Spain. Put this guy in charge of the EU, for what good that’ll do.
In this last year, Europe was confronted by several manifestations of Islamic fascism. From the 7/7 London bombings to the car-burning youths of France to the unreported sectarian sex crimes in Scandnavia to the reaction of cartoon images of Mohammed in Danish newspapers, not to mention the kidnapping and ransoming of European nationals in the Middle East, the collective response of the European public and their political and media masters have been underwhelming.
Weakness breeds contempt. It was contempt for the United States that resulted in 9/11. For a movement that makes war by acts of symbolism and mass psychology, Europe is asking for its own destruction by its demonstrated unwillingness to defend itself and its culture.
Overheard: “we Europeans want to appease China because we believe they’re basically a benign rising power that needs to be socialized into the international system. Of course, if we thought they were a nasty, aggressive regime we’d do exactly the same thing.”
OTOH, the Kagan line about the Europeans gets old fast. The French are perfectly willing to flex military muscle in their sphere of influence. And Aznar is still pissed he got beat – but it was his own damn fault for trying to blame ETA.
“And Aznar is still pissed he got beat.” Aznar term limited himself out, it was his party, his anointed successor who got beat.
To discount veracity of Aznar’s speech so offhandedly suggest an unwillingness to see the international challenges facing the Western world. Can you deny that Aznar is right? EU diplomatic attempts to freeze Iran’s nuclear weapons program utterly failed because Europe is perceived as essentially unarmed, politically weak and disunited. All this will likely result in an air offensive by us or Israel or together. Will Europe support or oppose us? The real question is does it even matter.
Aznar is making the obvious point that without the United States, Europe is courting a state of irrelevance in the world. And just, this is the path Europeans are taking. Until this change, Kagan will always be fresh.
Same difference.
Tom, are you responding to my comment – because, if you are:
1) You’re ignoring the main point, which was to reinforce aspects of Aznar’s arguments about the unwillingness of the Europeans to get tough with threats.
2) I don’t follow your logic, which seems to flit from “challenges facing the Western world” to the lack of success the EU has had in its negotiations with Iran. These are two different issue entirely: one concerns a lack of awareness of a threat, the other the lack of success of a strategy.
By your own logic, the US would be courting irrelevance for its lack of success on both the Iranian and the North Korea front.