EDITORIAL - We asked for it, we got it

The much-ballyhooed 2+2 meeting in Washington between Phl foreign affairs secretary Albert del Rosario and his American counterpart secretary of state Hillary Clinton, and Phl defense chief Voltaire Gazmin and US defense secretary Leon Panetta shouldn’t have happened.

Going into the meeting, it was clear to most everybody, with the notable exception of the Philippines itself, that the US wasn’t about to take sides in the row between the Philippines and China over Scarborough Shoal, our mutual defense treaty with the US notwithstanding.

American foreign policy, needless to say, is rooted in American interests. When the Philippines went into that 2+2 meeting in Washington, it only had Philippine interests in mind. Certainly, it did not expect to change American foreign policy overnight.

But to that meeting the Philippines went. And when the outcome of that meeting was made public, by no less than the meeting participants themselves, it only made clear what should have been very clear at the outset — that the US was not taking sides in the conflict.

By insisting on having that meeting, the Philippines only got what it does not want, an official declaration of its worst fears, that it was going it alone against the biggest bully in the block.

Had the meeting not taken place, the question of whether or not the United States would come running to the rescue of the Philippines would have left everybody guessing. At this stage in the conflict, that would have been deterrent enough for China not to go from push to shove.

But we really wanted to place the US on the spot. We really wanted to force its hand on an issue that should have been clear without further elaboration. And now the US has stated it categorically and unequivocally — it will not come rushing to our aid against China.

Of course the US tried to mollify our feelings by promising to help beef up our naval resources. But we can only get so much in face of all the other needy allies that the US has to keep happy with military assistance. It will never be enough to even eyeball China.

On the other hand, US military assistance is not a product of that 2+2 meeting. It has long been the policy of the US to give away the military hardware it no longer needs. It is in its best interest to do so. It helps allies, and puts up a first line for its own defense.