'We are risking a gulf between the West and the Islamic World' by Will Hutton& Kamal Ahmed The Observer 3:33pm 23rd Mar, 2003   Sunday March 23, 2003. Published in The Observer    Six years ago, Will Hutton interviewed Robin Cook as he took charge of the Foreign Office after the 1997 election. Now, he returns with Kamal Ahmed to hear Cook, in his first major interview since resigning, tell why he had to go - and warn of the dangers ahead for foreign policy.    In hearings in the Senate in Washington last week, Richard Lugar, the Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, recalled the words of President Teddy Roosevelt. 'Roosevelt prescribed that America should "speak softly and carry a big stick",' Lugar said. 'In the present age, we are carrying an incredibly big stick, but we must be willing to spend more resources on the ability to speak softly.'    A few thousand miles away in the upstairs drawing room of 1 Carlton Gardens, London, Robin Cook, former Cabinet member, former Foreign Secretary and the first person to resign from Tony Blair's Cabinet on a point of principle, sat and considered the wreckage of a political career.    Next to him on a small table was a stuffed stoat, given to him during the arms to Iraq scandal of the Nineties. Cook led the Opposition assault on the Conservative Government when the Scott Report revealed that Ministers had turned a blind eye to possible weapons exports to Iraq without bothering to inform the public.    In his first major interview since he resigned last Monday, he looked at the dead animal and said: 'It's my good luck charm. I suppose there is a symmetry to it all. I gained my reputation on the issue of Iraq and I have left the Government over the issue of Iraq.'    Cook's position is based on more than a disagreement over whether and when military action should have been taken against Saddam. He questions the legitimacy of the war, arguing that with more time for inspectors it could have been avoided.    But there is also the larger issue of America's role in the world and how Britain should relate to the elephant over the water. Cook believes he is seeing a crisis in the world order, once based on an acceptance that the UN was the ultimate custodian of international law and now replaced by the desires of the world's first hyper-power.'America is a hyper-power, it can afford to go it alone,' Cook said. 'Britain is not a superpower. It is not in our interests to contribute to a weakening and a sidelining of international bodies like the Security Council. The Security Council and the system of world order governed by rules has been badly damaged.    'There is a suspicion that the speed with which this has moved has been dictated by American military preparations rather than by the needs of Britain's diplomatic campaign. That is why it has been so difficult for Tony to mobilise public opinion and indeed international opinion.'    Cook makes it clear that he supports the troops. 'Now the conflict has started I hope that the operation is successful and that all our troops will come back,' he says.    After walking the Norfolk Broads last month and deciding that without a second UN resolution he could not stay in Cabinet, he says he 'has been at peace'. There was a clarity, finally, to what he was doing.    'When I saw Tony last week I made it clear I had made up my mind,' he said. 'He respected that.' Cook refused to comment on the change of heart by Clare Short, the International Development Secretary, who threatened to resign if there were no second resolution.    But, why did Blair expend so much effort urging Short to stay? 'I think you put your efforts into persuading people you think are open to persuasion.'    Now Cook has been released from Cabinet responsibility, he can say what he believes: Britain must heal the wounds with Europe, particularly France and Germany, for any chance of creating a balance to hyper-power politics, he says. Britain wasbounced into a conflict in Iraq because of an American military imperative, he says. The Bush administration does not share the values of Britain or Europe, he says. If Britain does not find a way to say no to the US then the concept of international solidarity is dead.    Cook knows the world is dealing with a new reality of 'pre-emptive diplomacy', the new American doctrine held dear by Bush and his inner circle.    The policy is clear: America will act whenever and wherever it believes that the target threatens US interests. And the biggest threat is the support for interna tional terrorism. Any rogue state is now a legitimate target.    Within this doctrine is the argument that, if affairs are left to international institutions such as the UN, there is a greater chance of prevarication and diplomatic stalemate. America wants to act, and quickly. Every day that a dictator is left in power, runs the argument of the American conservatives, is another day when the very fabric of America is at stake. America will act - with a coalition of the willing if necessary. On its own if not. Impatience runs through the thinking.    'The events of 11 September created an entirely new sense, not only in America but around the world, of the priority and urgency of dealing with international terrorism,' Cook said. 'It had a particularly powerful effect on American society because they are not accustomed to war coming to them.    'But, if you take a response to 9/11 as being a driving force of the American approach to international affairs, I would strongly argue that one of the greatest assets that came out of that was the extraordinarily rich and powerfully diverse coalition against international terrorism.'    That coalition, according to Cook, has now been shattered on the altar of pre-emptive diplomacy. America has long planned to attack Iraq and splits in the UN, Nato and in the European Union were a price worth paying.    'Now, I'm not an American politician but if I was I would be inveighing against the extent to which the Bush administration had allowed that terrific asset to disintegrate,' Cook said.    'Instead the US is left embarking on military action from a position of diplomatic weakness, unable to get any major international organisation to agree with it. We are heading for a very serious risk of a big gulf between the Western and Islamic world. That seems to me to have thrown away a powerful asset for the US which relates to its number one security concern.'    How far away Cook must feel from those heady days after Labour's 1997 election victory. Then, in an interview with The Observer, Cook, just installed as the first Labour Foreign Secretary for 18 years, spoke of a new world order built on international consensus.    'We want to take Britain out of a position of isolationism,' he said. '[We want to be] a leading member of the international community. Personally I think we are entering a period when international politics is coming of age.'    He believes there were a number of years of progress when Blair shared a world vision with Bill Clinton, whose administration agreed with Britain's 'fundamental values'. But Britain's closeness to the Bush administration over Iraq is flawed.    'What changed in the last two years is that we are dealing with the Bush administration and there are people in that administration who don't care for any multilateral system committed to security and development,' he said.    'The State Department [the US Foreign Office] is very weak. The Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld axis is the motor of the Bush administration. They do not allow much space for [Colin] Powell [Secretary of State].'    Of Bush's Axis of Evil speech, when he named Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the enemies of the free world, Cook says, archly, that 'whoever wrote it' was ignorant of the realities.    'The immediate effect of the speech was to achieve a major reverse for the reformers in Iran,' he said, pointing out that the ayatollahs used the speech to attack America and democratic forces at home. 'If we are going to have a multilateral system we've all got to have ownership of what the priorities are going to be.'    Cook says that Britain now finds itself in a diplomatic position 'that it will come to regret'. Too close to America, too far away from Europe.    'Where should we be looking for the future direction of Britain's strategic international relations, for me the answer is Europe, to make sure that we are a major player and we are passionate that Europe speaks with a strong voice which means we try and speak without a divided voice,' he said.    'There are many reasons for that but the need to have an alternative pole, not a rival, but an alternative pole within international affairs is one of them. I have always been strongly committed to a multilateral system. We must respect international institutions.    'We need to engage in an international community that can bring to international forums and state with clarity the type of European values that are certainly not shared by many of those in the Bush administration,' he said.    'Firstly a respect for multilateral protocols, secondly if we are going to achieve a world governed by rules then we need to respect international process. There are two other European themes: a respect for global environmentalism and that the priorities of the international community reflect the massive priority of tackling poverty.    'We are not going to win the international war against terrorism unless we also win the international war against poverty.'    He suggests that when Bush decided push had come to shove, Britain should have said no. The inspectors needed more time, and Britain should have been strong enough to say so. 'Tony genuinely believed he could deliver unity behind the US for confrontation and that this unity in itself would produce sufficient progress on the part of Iraq that would have averted war,' Cook said.    'One of the reasons we didn't get that unity was because people felt that there was an impatience on the part of America to push the pace at which other countries would not readily go.    'Also, there were some noises off from the US which undermined our diplomatic effort. Calling France and Germany Old Europe was not helpful to what the British diplomats were trying to secure.    'One lesson is that although we must maintain our traditional alliance with America while it has an administration which does not share our world view or our values we have to make sure that we keep enough distance, that there is an option for Britain to come to a different conclusion.'    Cook and his stuffed stoat will soon be moving out of the Government apartment he has lived in since 1997. He expects that resignation is 'a one way street' and it is unlikely that he will ever return. And each day he will watch the bombing live on television certain in the belief that it could all have been avoided. Visit the related web page
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