Why, oh Why does Charles Krauthammer Get Published by a Respectable Newspaper?
By Shorter Krauthammer: The EU is responsible for Britain’s humiliation by Iran.
Really, it’s almost sad that Krauthammer represents what passes for a right-wing intellectual these days. First, the only place that Britain was humiliated was in the fantasies of right-wing fanatics who believe the bombing should have started the day before the sailors were seized. Second, the EU had not the faintest to do with this issue. Denouncing the EU as a failure for not doing something that the EU had nothing to do with doesn’t even manage to achieve the level of intellectual dishonesty; what it’s missing is the “intellectual” part. Finally, the critical element of the EU failure narrative for Krauthammer is that the Iranians were given access to their diplomats in Iran. They were given this access by the European Union, acting in a multilat…. wait, no; it seems to have been the United States which allowed the access, and thus played the critical role in the “humiliation” of the United Kingdom. Krauthammer ends with this:
What exactly has the new multilateralism brought us? North Korea tested a nuclear device. Iran has accelerated its march to developing the bomb. The pro-Western government in Beirut hangs by a thread. The Darfur genocide continues unabated.
The capture and release of the British hostages illustrate once again the fatuousness of the “international community” and its great institutions. You want your people back? Go to the European Union and get stiffed. Go to the Security Council and get a statement that refuses even to “deplore” this act of piracy. (You settle for a humiliating expression of “grave concern.”) Then turn to the despised Americans. They’ll deal some cards and bail you out.
I’m sorry; how did unilateral US action work to prevent North Korea from getting a bomb? How did it slow Iran’s puruit of nuclear weapons? How did it help the situation in Lebananon (where Israel’s express purpose was to achieve a multilateral peacekeeping force? And has there ever, ever been anything that has prevented US action on Darfur?
Chuck Krauthammer is a pseudo-intellectual hack; like so many right-wing “thinkers”, his appeal comes from his ability to use long words in the service of arguments that would be transparently stupid to an eight year old. Instapundit, of course, approves.