Thoughts big and small about the Brussels Forum
The perfect time to dish about a conference full of high-level muckity-mucks is when you’re really, really jet-lagged. So, without further ado: 1) After close first-hand observation, I can now confirm that Senator John McCain has the equivalent of rock star status among policy cognoscenti. How do I know this? During the past 24 hours, ...
The perfect time to dish about a conference full of high-level muckity-mucks is when you're really, really jet-lagged. So, without further ado: 1) After close first-hand observation, I can now confirm that Senator John McCain has the equivalent of rock star status among policy cognoscenti. How do I know this? During the past 24 hours, I observed the following: a) Richard Holbrooke taking great pains to say that he agreed with everything John McCain said at one of the sessions; b) Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez taking great pains to plow over anyone and everyone separating her from McCain as we were all leaving dinner so she could sit next to him on the ride back to the hotel. c) On the plane back to the United States, the man sitting next to me asked in an excited Belgian accent, "Do you know that Senator McCain is on this flight?" d) Despite all the adulation from Democrats and Europeans, the Republicans in attendance all seemed happy to see him as well. 2) There's no question that the official rancor between the United States and much of Europe that was on full display in 2003 is now gone. At the same time, as someone smarter than myself pointed out during one of the sessions, we now live in a world where Bush has 33% approval ratings, the French government is even more unpopular, the German and Italisn governments look unstable, and Tony Blair is a lame duck. Hardly the idea situation for getting anything of substance accomplished. 3) The Federal government of Belgium gave all of the participants an enormous coffee table book, written in Flemish and French, about Belgian horticulture. I regret to report that I may have left my copy in my hotel room. 4) Here are links to the keynote speechs given by John McCain and John Edwards. Come to think of it, here is the link to all the transcripts from the meeting. So, dear readers, you can pretend like you were in Brussels too -- minus the massive coffe-table books.
The perfect time to dish about a conference full of high-level muckity-mucks is when you’re really, really jet-lagged. So, without further ado: 1) After close first-hand observation, I can now confirm that Senator John McCain has the equivalent of rock star status among policy cognoscenti. How do I know this? During the past 24 hours, I observed the following:
a) Richard Holbrooke taking great pains to say that he agreed with everything John McCain said at one of the sessions; b) Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez taking great pains to plow over anyone and everyone separating her from McCain as we were all leaving dinner so she could sit next to him on the ride back to the hotel. c) On the plane back to the United States, the man sitting next to me asked in an excited Belgian accent, “Do you know that Senator McCain is on this flight?” d) Despite all the adulation from Democrats and Europeans, the Republicans in attendance all seemed happy to see him as well.
2) There’s no question that the official rancor between the United States and much of Europe that was on full display in 2003 is now gone. At the same time, as someone smarter than myself pointed out during one of the sessions, we now live in a world where Bush has 33% approval ratings, the French government is even more unpopular, the German and Italisn governments look unstable, and Tony Blair is a lame duck. Hardly the idea situation for getting anything of substance accomplished. 3) The Federal government of Belgium gave all of the participants an enormous coffee table book, written in Flemish and French, about Belgian horticulture. I regret to report that I may have left my copy in my hotel room. 4) Here are links to the keynote speechs given by John McCain and John Edwards. Come to think of it, here is the link to all the transcripts from the meeting. So, dear readers, you can pretend like you were in Brussels too — minus the massive coffe-table books.
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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