Shooting the Bandit

In the movie, the bandit brandished a huge scimitar and twirled it around. He flicked it and made it dance. The crowd, assembled to watch him carve up the hero with full ceremony, was mesmerized. The hero pulled out his gun and unceremoniously but efficiently dispatched the bandit. The crowd was disappointed, but the hero had business to do.

In the movie, the bandit brandished a huge scimitar and twirled it around. He flicked it and made it dance. The crowd, assembled to watch him carve up the hero with full ceremony, was mesmerized. The hero pulled out his gun and unceremoniously but efficiently dispatched the bandit. The crowd was disappointed, but the hero had business to do.

You can carry a movie metaphor too far, and Mr. Bush is not Indiana Jones, but his trip through Europe had an element of shooting the bandit. For all that they looked down their noses at our president, the Europeans are light years behind him and the most of the rest of the United States in understanding the changes in the post-Cold War security picture. “Jaw-jaw” may still be better than “war-war,” as Winston Churchill said, but one of the chief European issues with Mr. Bush was that he didn’t pretend that talking about a problem is the same as solving it or knowing that it can’t be solved now.

Mr. Bush delivered his message, listened to theirs and still found a way to do business. He forthrightly acknowledged differences of view and even impasses in thinking because, unlike them, he did not seem to believe that political debate or even disagreement among allies constitutes failure. How very odd that Western Europe the cradle of democratic liberalism demands slavish political obedience among allies. How very American of Mr. Bush to trumpet an independent position.

He dismissed the Kyoto Treaty, but since not a single EU country has ratified it, not a word of reproach from them is acceptable. (“No one didn’t not ratify it,” said EU President Romano Prodi. His problem is more political than syntactical.) He stood firm on missile defenses for the United States, but offered an approach to security that is more ethical than holding civilian populations hostage (MAD) and much more forward thinking. On the treaty for the International Criminal Court, the endless tinkering that accompanied its birth and still characterizes its mandate didn’t mesmerize Mr. Bush.

He pronounced a clear and direct agenda that we think most Americans accept, and European leaders should understand. The United States will: 1. Develop missile defenses to defend itself and its interests with or without the participation and permission of others; and will unilaterally downsize its nuclear arsenal to the minimum consistent with American security. 2. Reject multilateral treaties with escape clauses for the worst offenders and no enforcement mechanisms. 3. Engage its allies and others in discussion, without agreeing to substitute anyone else’s judgment for its own.

It was appropriate for the President of the United States to have gone to Europe to promote American interests confidently and without apology. We believe it is the only way that our friends, and those that are not our friends, will understand America and believe what our government says.