Actually, John O’Sullivan takes up this notion in his latest NR piece, which responds to pieces by Mark Steyn and the Wall Street Journal. Here’s part of it:

“What Steyn does is argue that Tony Blair may be even more dangerously hostile to the Europeanist strategy than Lady Thatcher was, precisely because he is both an Atlanticist and a European. Hence, under Blair’s influence, “it’s possible that Europe will develop in ways that are not in France’s interests.” Perhaps I am over-interpreting Steyn here, but this sounds very like the old State Department orthodoxy that Britain will prove a very useful American “Trojan Horse” within Europe—with the added twist that, unless Chirac really does veto the entry of the east Europeans next year, Britain will soon be strengthened by a new wave of pro-American recruits. The Wall Street Journal editorial page takes essentially the same view.

The boldness of this approach—stealing the EU from the Franco-Germans—is appealing. And it may well be that this is the approach that Atlanticists will have to adopt if the U.S. will not encourage a more fundamental reshaping of Atlantic relations. But it is fraught with difficulty and danger.

The EU was established to be a regulated market internally and a counterweight to the U.S. in world politics. Its bureaucracy is staffed with Europeanist ideologues sympathetic to the Franco-German vision. Its legal system is built on the principle of encouraging “ever-greater union” and thus the erosion of national sovereignty. New member-states have to accept all previous Euro-regulations, however damaging to their economies. The EU is designed to enable its bureaucracy and most powerful members to bribe, bully, and manipulate the relatively poor new arrivals into going along with initiatives such as an intrinsically anti-American common foreign policy in return for subsidies from Brussels. Even if such tactics do not succeed in creating a rival European superpower—which they might—they would probably frustrate the emergence of a clearly Atlanticist Europe under U.S. leadership….”