http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/2 00711/INT20071106c.html British Peers Analyze America's Role in the World By Kevin McCandless CNSNews.com Correspondent November 06, 2007
The battle of ideas between Americanism and anti-Americanism will set the tone of the 21st century, according to several members of the British House of Lords. In a recent debate in the British upper house, Lord Maurice Saatchi said that hatred against America has spread into a global phenomenon, crossing borders and religion. However, the Conservative lawmaker also said the founding ideology of the United States, including the inalienable rights to freedom, justice and opportunity, has been an inspiration to millions all over the globe. Saatchi, co-founder of the advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi, concluded that America must develop policies to help the world follow its lead, as well as find the language to project its ideals beyond its own shores. "America has a fine ideology, but it has forgotten either what it is or how to express it," he said. "America today is a sleeping beauty. It is time to wake her up." In the subsequent debate, peers from across the political spectrum said that Britain's most important foreign relationship was with the U.S. but that the United Kingdom should be a "critical friend." Although recent anti-Americanism has been attributed to opposition to the war in Iraq, instances were given of earlier outbreaks dating back to the entry of the U.S. into World War I. Baroness Doreen Miller, who sits in the Conservative benches, said the free world was dealing ultimately with regimes "that regard the British and American concept of democracy as a complete anathema." "The straightforward fact is that the world is a better and safer place because America is the one superpower," she said. "The world would be a more dangerous place if what happened in the 1930s was repeated and America was driven back into isolationism and persuaded to pick up its football and go home." Speaking for the Labor government, Lord Mark Malloch Brown said it was important for Britain to make the case for American engagement in the world as a force for good. Sometimes, he concluded, part of the problem was that the world looked upon the America in an overidealized way, expecting it to act unlike other nations. "Friendship also requires realism," he said. "This is a marriage not a romance." Malloch Brown is a former U.N. deputy secretary-general who in 2006 was embroiled in a row over comments about American U.N.-bashing. Ironically, even as anti-Americanism persists, U.S. culture remains a dominant feature in British life. British cinemas continue to feature large slates of American films and British streets remain filled with American fast-food outlets. Robert Lawson-Peebles, an expert on the transatlantic relationship at the University of Exeter, said that historically, many Britons have embraced parts of American culture because it shook up what might be seen as a society gone stale. "There are some groups which have always welcomed the latest emanation from the United States because they feel it's blowing away the cobwebs," he said. "And there are other groups which hate it because it is blowing away the cobwebs." Late in October, in the first regular season NFL game outside the United States, the Miami Dolphins played the New York Giants before an 80,000-plus crowd at Wembley Stadium in London. David Tossell, a NFL spokesman in London, said there has been a hardcore base of British fans of American football since the 1980s, attracted by the flash and the excitement of the game. Since then, he said, British soccer leagues have learned from the NFL how to sell themselves, and have shaken off a previously boring image. 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