Where Are the Allies?

Given the arrogance and distemper of the Bush Administration, it's kind of tough for even our best friends, like the Brits, to remain solid U.S. allies these days...but I've got to say that Max Boot raises an important point in his column today.

Our NATO allies simply aren't pulling their weight in Afghanistan. This is a "good war" against some really bad actors--the Taliban and Al Qaeda. If we can't get NATO to do more than some flaccid, Sarajevo-style peacekeeping, then you have to wonder about the future of the alliance...although I suppose that NATO is still good for its initial purpose, to repel an attack on the European democracies. But if the Europeans aren't going to join us in the fight they agreed to undertake against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan--if we are truly all alone--it damages righteous liberal arguments about multilateralism as a precondition for military action and bolsters the neoconservative assumption that we're the only country in the world with any military spine. That would be very bad news, indeed.

Update: I must say I'm disappointed by the inability of many commenters to see past their opinions of Max Boot and deal with the very disappointing failure of the Europeans to stand up in Afghanistan. Ezra Klein makes a similar point here about the perils of ideological myopia.

My disappointment deepens. It appears that several readers think my use of the word "righteous" to describe multilateralism was "snarky" or ironic. It wasn't. Regular readers of Swampland and my column know that I have repeatedly written that, if nothing else, Iraq has taught us that pre-emptive unilateralism is disastrous. But as a commited multilateralist, I remain disappointed in the European unwillingness to use force--even when part of a multilateral operation, as in Afghanistan...or Bosnia, for that matter. Remember Srebrenica? The Dutch--whose peacekeepers permitted a genocide--certainly do.