EU’s Patten Fires Valedictory Broadside at Bush

By Aine Gallagher

STRASBOURG, France - The European Union’s outgoing External Relations Commissioner, Chris Patten, launched a withering attack on United States policy in Iraq Wednesday, saying the world deserved better than American "testosterone."

Renowned for his blunt speaking, Patten used his parting speech to the European Parliament to deliver a stinging rejection of what he depicted as the Bush administration’s go-it-alone approach and contempt for allies.

The U.S.-led invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein , which split the western alliance, had failed to bring peace to Iraq, Israel or the Palestinians, he said.

"Liberation rapidly turned into a brutally resisted occupation. Democracy failed to roll out like an oriental carpet across the thankless deserts of the Middle East," Patten said.

"Above all, peace in Jerusalem and Palestine was not accomplished by victory in Baghdad," he said.

Patten, a former chairman of Britain’s Conservative party and the last colonial governor of Hong Kong, leaves office at the end of next month and will be returning to private life as non-executive chancellor of Oxford University.

Without mentioning President Bush by name, he said "neo-conservative unilateralism" had clearly failed to establish peace, liberty and democracy, forcing Washington to bring allies and international institutions back into fashion.

"Can we now look forward to the restoration of that old-fashioned notion that allies have to be led, not bossed, and that multilateral institutions have their important uses even for the world’s only superpower?" Patten asked.

ELECTION RHETORIC

But he concluded that multilateralism was not yet accepted on either side of the political divide in Washington, saying the rhetoric of the U.S. presidential election campaign was "pretty unsettling" — although he insisted he was not taking sides.

"If you want to get a cheap cheer from certain quarters in America it seems that all you have to do is to bash the U.N., or the French, or the very idea that allies are entitled to have their own opinions," Patten said.

"Multilateralists, we are told, want to out-source American foreign and security policy to a bunch of garlic chewing, cheese eating wimps," he said.

Patten stressed that a joint approach to world problems was in the best interests of the United States, as well as of Europe, which was otherwise in danger of believing that sniping at Washington was in itself a policy.

"What I most worry about is that on either side of the Atlantic, we will bring out the worst in our traditional partners," he said. "The world deserves better than testosterone on one side and superciliousness on the other." (Reuters)

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