Foley, below, says Brown's first task when he returns from hols should be 
to sack Millband.  


interesting trying to figure out what Milliband is doing - and, separate 
question, what he thinks he is doing?  





http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/25/davidmiliband.foreign
policy



David Miliband has to go

The foreign secretary's contradictory statements suggest he is making it 
up as he goes along. Gordon Brown must sack him
All comments (70)

    * Conor Foley
    *
          o Conor Foley
          o guardian.co.uk,
          o Monday August 25 2008 15:00 BST
         
David Miliband's claim that Nato last week agreed the "formal process" of 
bringing Georgia into membership – which was immediately contradicted by 
the organisation's own general secretary, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer – is the 
latest of a series of contradictory signals from Britain's foreign 
secretary.

Coming in the same week as Nick Brown, one of Gordon Brown's closest 
confidantes, wrote that he did not back Georgia's membership and did not 
know anyone who does, it reveals the incoherence of Labour's post-Blair 
foreign policy.

When Miliband was first appointed as foreign secretary he initially 
signalled a break from the Anglo-American imperialism of his 
predecessors. In his first interview he spoke of the need to "see the 
world through Indian eyes", a reference to the concerns of the global 
south and the growing importance of their emerging economies.

Since Goldman Sachs first grouped the nations of Brazil, Russia, India 
and China together based on two shared characteristics – large 
populations and rapid economic growth – the so-called Bric nations have 
been moving towards a real political alliance. A summit, hosted by 
Russia, this May led to the first political declaration by the Bric bloc 
– which was strongly at variance with current US foreign policy.

Both Brazil and India share Russia and China's hostility to international 
military intervention and have tended to vote against resolutions 
authorising such actions on the UN security council. But as democracies, 
with left-of-centre governments, they should be Labour's natural allies, 
particularly if Britain would take more of a lead in addressing their 
concerns about world trade and global governance.

Yet in Miliband's first major speech on foreign policy, this February, he 
went even further than Blair in endorsing the interventionist doctrine 
saying that "something strange happened" in the 1990s when "the 
neoconservative movement seemed more certain about spreading democracy 
around the world" than the left. He followed up this completely 
historically inaccurate assertion by saying that the failures in Iraq had 
all been down to postwar planning and that future "interventions in other 
countries must be more subtle, better planned, and if possible undertaken 
with the agreement of multilateral institutions". It is difficult to 
think of a worse signal to have sent to the rest of the world.

In the wake of the devastating cyclone that hit Burma in May Miliband 
hinted that he was considering using the British military to deliver aid 
by force – a quite extraordinary statement given Britain's current 
military capacity and commitments and Burma's proximity to China.

Foreign ministers have a difficult job because their statements need to 
be weighed for both their domestic and international political impact. 
They also need to construct a consistent narrative so that, for example, 
they are not lecturing other countries about human rights while being 
complicit in the torture of prisoners themselves.

This has been at the heart of the dilemma facing successive British 
foreign secretaries since George Bush began his "war on terror" and, to 
be fair to Miliband, he inherited a set of problems over which he had no 
control. Neither can foreign ministers pursue policies in isolation from 
their prime minister and Robin Cook's defiance of Blair over the 
international criminal court's statute was probably the last 
demonstration of such independence.

Unfortunately, since Miliband all but announced his candidature for the 
Labour leadership last month, every single instance of perceived 
differences between him and Brown is coming under the political 
microscope.

His initial response to Russia's invasion of Georgia was actually very 
well-measured. He correctly condemned it as an aggressive violation of 
international law and Georgian sovereignty. "China and the Non-Aligned 
Movement will be surprised by this new position," he caustically noted. 
He also stated that Georgia's application for Nato membership should 
remain on track, but he warned against calls for Russia's isolation 
saying that "Our response should be to welcome them into systems such as 
the World Trade Organisation."

In perhaps the most significant passage he argued: "I do not support 
Russia's expulsion from the G8: that would encourage Russian sense of 
victimhood, fuel Russian revanchism, and allow the Russians to position 
themselves as the champion of reform for those currently outside the 
G8." Well quite, but splitting Nato hardly sends out the best signals 
either.

Opinion polls show that people do not know what Miliband stands for and 
this is because he is simultaneously arguing contradictory positions. I 
would probably have supported him if he had stood for the leadership of 
the Labour party against Brown last year. A proper election would have 
helped both candidates to clarify their respective political positions. 
Now the problem is that we simply do not know when Miliband says 
something if he is speaking on Brown's behalf, positioning himself 
against him, or just making it up as he goes along. That is a rather 
worrying drawback in a foreign secretary in our nuclear age.

Most people who know Miliband say that he is an extremely talented, 
clever and affable person, so it grieves me to say it, but when Brown 
returns from his holiday, his first task should be to be sack him.