“Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.”-Lord Palmerston
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Indeed, the former Prime Minister is correct in that matter. Pursuing permanent national interests is a main function of governments; this can be balanced against keeping long time allies, which in and of itself is a form of national interest, but allies are not to be permanent at the price of security or sovereignty. Sometimes allies will act in self interest against the interests of their allies. The test of that friendship is two fold, what the offending country is willing to do against an ally in pursuit of its own national interest, and what the offended country is willing to accept and not react to in deference to that friendship.
The above conundrum of foreign relations is most recently being put to the test between the US and the UK. There has been much hand-ringing and ink spilled over the wiki-leaks revelation that President Obama gave the Russians The British nuclear locations and the types of warhead that are deployed and are in development in order to get the latest SALT treaty ratified. It appears the information given was on the British Trident missiles that are manufactured and maintained in the US. Britain will not confirm its actual number of missiles, but most of the information is out here in defense circles already. That being said, an ally does not do that sort of thing especially just to get a practically meaningless treaty about strategic nuclear weapons passed. The sending back of the Churchill bust and giving the queen an Ipod of his speeches does not fall into the realm of abuse of an ally; those acts were of a selfish, narcissistic man trying to appease the ghosts of his father, the Kenyan, who hated and fought against Britain and colonial rule and was imprisoned for those actions. For Obama, as has been discussed on this blog since before is election, those things are personal and Third World Liberation driven. I am sure after he is gone, the bust of Churchill will be returned and the Queen will have long forgotten about the Ipod. These acts are transient and personal, the revealing of nuclear secrets are not; this is an actual abuse of an ally.
Abuse of an ally brings me to this: The Labour Governments under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown negotiated with Colonel Gaddafi to release the Pan-Am flight 103 bomber so that a British Petroleum contract with Libya would be approved by Colonel Gaddafi; at first both PM’s denied the action, however, it has been revealed by British Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnel that the denial is a lie and the Labour governments were very active in this mess. This terrorist bombing killed 190 American Citizens and 80 from 20 other countries. Prime Minister Cameron is outraged over the release, the denial/cover-up, and is considering calling an inquiry into the previous government’s role in this act. It is very apparent that both Blair and Brown’s Labour Government are very complicit in working for the release of convicted terrorist Abdelbaset al-Megrah. The excuse for release was that he was in the terminal stages of prostate cancer with less than 90 days to live, he is still very much alive 18+ months after his release in August of 2009.
The American government would be next in line to try Abdelbaset al-Megrah for 190 counts of murder and other charges if he were ever released by the British. No one expected his release as he was serving many life terms in England. Prime Ministers Blair and Brown both decided to follow Lord Palmerston’s quote and test how much abuse America would take so that an oil contract for BP could get approved by the Libyans. The reaction from the State Department and the White House is one of disappointment that our ally would do something like this and that the decision to release him for an oil contract was a mistake.
So, the special relationship between the US and the UK moves on, both sides have undercut the other and acted in what was perceived by the governments as their own national interests. The US gave away some British nuclear secrets to get a treaty and the UK released a murderer of 190 Americans to get an oil contract. Both sides shrugged off the actions because both sides know that Prime Ministers and Presidents come and go, and as of right now, the relationship between the UK and the US has been tested by both sides and survives as it is in fact the closest thing to a permanent interest that both sides have in the realm of foreign affairs. How many more Labour/Democrat driven ‘tests’ can the relationship survive is anyone’s guess.
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