Bob Tippee
Debate over Iraq has fallen victim to the type of political arrogance that destroyed discourse on climate change.
On Feb. 17, French President Jacques Chirac threw an incredible tantrum against European governments opposing his country's reluctance to forcibly depose Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Like the politics of climate change, the tirade ignored facts and arguments and focused instead on nonconformance with a consecrated agenda.
"It is not really responsible behavior," Chirac said of governments supporting US and British readiness to use force in Iraq. "It is not well brought-up behavior. They (the contrary governments) missed a good opportunity to keep quiet." Chirac compounded his self-righteousness with special ire for 13 governments from Central and Eastern Europe seeking or awaiting membership in the European Union. "I felt they acted frivolously because entry into the European Union implies a minimum of understanding for the others," he said.
Then he singled out Romania and Bulgaria, which haven't yet been admitted into the EU. "If they wanted to diminish their chances of joining Europe they could not have found a better way," the French president said. Imperiousness of the same order dominates the politics of climate change.
Alarmists have carved a worst-case scenario about warming out of the climate's unpredictability, prescribed a costly and probably futile remedy for a problem that might not exist, and responded with indignation whenever anyone asked why.
US President George W. Bush spoke against the crowning product of this senselessness, the Kyoto Treaty on Climate Change, and has been pilloried ever since for being "unilateralist." The harshest criticism comes from Europe.
The US, in fact, would be foolish to submit to an international agreement that demands maximum pain for minimum gain. Bush was right to reject the Kyoto accord—which, in fact, the Senate did before he took office.
If that's unilateralism, so what? And if disagreeing with a French president amounts to poorly brought-up behavior, the same question applies.
Global challenges exist. International problems require international solutions.
But sound solutions come from serious debate, in which sanctimonious scolding like Chirac's outburst on Iraq plays no constructive role.
(Online Feb. 21, 2003; author's e-mail: [email protected])
