BLIND-SIDED BY 'ALLIES'

Last Thursday, a new chapter in American foreign policy began, and --
worryingly -- its dawn took the government of the United States quite by
surprise. The tolling of the bell came in a closed room where the 53
members of the U.N. Economic and Social Council voted in secret balloting
to expel the United States from its seats on both the U.N. Human Rights
Commission and the U.N. International Narcotics Control Board.

Of these two bodies, the Human Rights Commission is much the more
important, and America's expulsion is much the more shocking. The United
States has held a seat on the commission since Eleanor Roosevelt created it
in 1947. In last week's balloting, America received only 29 votes. Among
those that beat out the United States for a seat were such guardians of
human rights as Sudan, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Pakistan, Mexico and Croatia.
Other members include Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Russia, Cuba and Vietnam.

The increasingly flat-footed Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed
great and obviously sincere surprise over the defeat, declaring that the
administration had received "43 solid written assurances" going into the
vote. So, 14 nations that had committed themselves to vote for the United
States reneged on their promises -- and the secretary of state never saw
this coming. Powell sought to explain the fiasco away by saying that some
allies had swapped their votes, as is common U.N. practice, because they
thought the United States was secure in its commission seats. "They're as
astonished as we are about what happened," said Powell, displaying a level
of innocence abroad not seen since the young ladies of Henry James's time
were wandering the Continent. It's touching, really. Sweet.

The first problem with Powell's theory is that the same group of nations
that voted to kick the United States off the Human Rights Commission also
voted, on the same day, to kick the American representative off the
Narcotics Control Board. That is right, our friends -- stout fellows all --
simply miscalculated, to our entirely accidental and deeply regretted
disadvantage. Twice. In a row.

The second problem was pointed out by The Post's Al Kamen this week. The
United States competes with Europe for three regional seats in seeking
reelection to the commission; the country that receives the fewest votes
loses its seat. "Problem was that Washington," Kamen reported, "couldn't
get one of three Euro countries to back down. So France, home to the
glorious Vichy Regime, got 52 votes; Austria, grand masters of historical
denial and boasting a foreign minister from neo-fascist Joerg Haider's
party, got 41; Sweden, which conveniently sat out the Big One, got 32,
beating the United States by three votes in the secret balloting."

What really happened is clear, no matter whether dawn ever breaks over yon
secretary of state's head: America's traditional allies joined forces with
America's traditional enemies to bash America a good and solid one. Last
week's U.N. vote was the opening round of what clearly has been coming
since George W. Bush was elected, a new period of official
anti-Americanism. Partisan opportunists like Sen. John Kerry of
Massachusetts were quick to accept the European view: We are being punished
- -- quite properly, was Kerry's intimation -- for the world's belief that
there is "a lack of a sense of honesty" in our government.

No. We are being punished for two reasons we have seen before. One, because
Europe's ruling classes will never forgive us for constructing a world in
which they no longer rule over anything except artisan cheeses. Two,
because we elected a conservative president -- worse, a conservative
president who seems intent on fulfilling his conservative promises. Add the
two together and you get what we are getting now -- a repeat of the Reagan
years, where Washington does what Washington wants and the elite of Europe
howl and lament, and quite enjoy themselves.

That is all right. It is gratifying for our European friends to enjoy the
full and unbridled expression of their contempt, and it is gratifying for
us to know that our European friends are, as they have been for -- why,
it's going on to a full century, isn't it? -- still clueless.

Still, it is not good for an administration to be unable to see so obvious
a punch in the nose coming. (It would probably help to bother to nominate a
U.N. ambassador.) And it is not good to have a secretary of state who
wonders, even as he swabs the blood from his tie, how he could ever have
been so careless as to get his nose in the way of his good friend's fist.