The new alliance

‘Freedom fries,’ served instead of French fries back in 2003, are no longer on the menu in Washington DC. French wine, out of fashion after Jacques Chirac refused to join our ‘coalition of the willing’ in Iraq, is no longer shunned. Au contraire. In one Washington restaurant last Saturday night, someone at my table raised a toast to the new leaders of the free world: ‘Vive la France!’ What else could we do? Our president was on his way to Brazil. Over in Old Europe, the President of France and his new best friend, the British Prime Minister, had just put themselves in charge of a new ‘coalition of the willing’ in Libya.

As I write, the ultimate goals and even the composition of this brand-new, ad hoc international grouping are still unclear. But the circumstances it reflects are perfectly clear. The United States of America is still prepared to join the rest of what we used to call ‘the West’ in policing the world, especially where the aims are entirely ‘humanitarian’ and no one will be sending ground troops.