Steyn

Kathryn Jean Lopez:
How is America Alone? Didn’t we have a coalition of the willing? Aren’t we always talking and meeting and have allies?

Mark Steyn:
Well, the short answer to that is that after 9/11 the president told the world you’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists and some of our “allies” (i.e., Belgium) checked the neither-of-the-above box and some of our “allies” (i.e., Saudi Arabia) checked the both-of-the-above box, and in neither case did it make any difference. “Ally” is largely a post-modern term these days meaning (a) duplicitous backstabber who puts you through months of negotiations to water down your U.N. Security Council resolution to utter meaninglessness or (b) NATO military comrade who requires months of schmoozing and black-tie photo-ops in order for you to crowbar out of him a token commitment of a couple of hundred troops he’s willing to deploy in-theatre as long as it’s in a non-combat role and preferably three provinces away from where the fighting’s taking place. Even “supportive” allies are deploying less than the Vermont National Guard and for a much bigger diplomatic effort. There are real allies, of course: Australia is the most level-headed nation on the international scene; Canada is at last behaving like a grown-up nation again, though its military is terribly underfunded; and the United Kingdom did a grand job holding down the southern third of Iraq in the invasion. But one of the sub-plots of my book is “Who lost Britain?”, and I find it hard to believe current trends in U.K. and European politics augur well for the Anglo-American relationship. So who does that leave? The Russians and the Chinese face down the road Muslim problems of their own, but figure that for the moment the jihad is America’s problem and it’s in their interest to keep it that way. As for India and other well-disposed nations who in essence share America’s view of the Islamist threat, you hear increasingly doubts about Washington’s will to see this thing through. If you’re watching John Kerry and Harry Reid and Jack Murtha and Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi and Dick Durbin on CNN International all week long, you can’t blame Indians and Singaporeans and Danes and Dutch for questioning American credibility. At some stage, that will reach a kind of tipping point, and even friendly nations will feel inclined to reach their accommodations with alternative forces. America has to use its moment, or lose it.