[PEN-L:30232] Iraq: the view from Europe

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.flonnet.com/fl1919/19190540.htm
Europe's dilemmas

The United States would like the Europeans to show more stomach for its proposed
war on Iraq. Europe's response has been incoherent: Italy and Spain seem to
favour a U.S. strike, France and Germany seek legitimacy for an attack and
Britain's stand has been ambiguous.

VAIJU NARAVANE
in Paris

WITH the United States upping the ante in its rhetoric against Iraq, the
question is no longer, "Will President Bush attack Iraq?" but "when" he will do
so.

European observers are watching the fortunes of U.S. Secretary of State Colin
Powell as a weather-vane. "His is the sole voice of reason within this
administration. If he falls, and hawks like Vice-President Dick Cheney or
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld take over completely, we'll know the end game
has begun," a senior official of the European Union (E.U.) said.

Initially, Cheney and Rumsfeld waxed eloquent about Saddam Hussein's evil
intentions, implicitly ruling out another United Nations Security Council
Resolution that would force the Iraqi leader to admit U.N. weapons inspectors.
Then Colin Powell changed the tune, saying that Iraq must accept the
unconditional return of UN weapons inspectors. Military sources say the window
of opportunity for an attack against Iraq lies between November and February.
Will the Bush administration be able to wait that long?

"At the moment, we feel we're sitting on a diplomatic see-saw. It's got to do
with whose lips you are reading - Powell's or Cheney's and Rumsfeld's. There is
so much dissension within the administration, and such a cacophony of views and
prescriptions that it is not easy. In all this, President Bush has remained
silent and sphinx-like, allowing his lieutenants to test the waters of world
opinion for him," the E.U. official said.

Most Europeans, however, feel that the U.S. has made up its mind to attack, and
in European capitals there has been a flurry of consultations over how the E.U.
should respond to a unilateral strike by the U.S. At a time when the U.S. is
desperately seeking to get at least a few major E.U. nations on its side, there
is every likelihood of Italy and Spain breaking ranks in support of Washington.

Europe's response so far has been incoherent. Britain started off by expressing
full support for U.S. plans to invade Iraq. But pressure from his own countrymen
and particularly the party he heads, as well as his peers in the European
leadership forced British Prime Minister Tony Blair to adopt a relatively more
ambiguous position. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw insisted that the return of
arms inspectors to Iraq would mean a significant change. In Johannesburg, where
he was attending the Earth Summit, Blair played his cards close to his chest and
refused to say whether he would support an unprovoked U.S. attack against Iraq.
Italy and Spain, headed by hardline conservative Prime Ministers Silvio
Berlusconi and Jose Maria Aznar respectively, are likely to favour strikes by
Washington. Both Aznar and Berlusconi are ardent personal admirers of George
Bush and favour tough, repressive methods to deal with not just terrorism but
criminality, juvenile delinquency and even industrial action.

Germany and France opposed U.S. plans to invade Iraq - the Germans much more
firmly than the French - saying that the U.S. failed to provide proof of
Saddam's alleged intention to wage a war against the West and Israel using
weapons of mass destruction. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder firmly stated that his
country would not be party to an attack against Iraq and that he would withdraw
German forces stationed in Kuwait. (Germany is due to go to the polls on
September 22.)

France took a more nuanced position. Not once, for instance, did it refer to the
U.S. directly while speaking of Iraq. French President Jacques Chirac said, "the
emergence of a temptation to legitimise unilateral and preventive use of force"
is a "worrying" development. He said this unilateralism was contrary to France's
vision of collective security, which was based on cooperation between states,
respect of the law and the authority of the U.N. Security Council.

"We shall invoke these rules when necessary and notably in connection with Iraq.
If Baghdad stubbornly refuses the return of inspectors, the Security Council and
it alone should decide what measures to take," Chirac said.

However, Chirac's Foreign Minister and close confidant Dominique de Villepin,
fearing U.S. accusations of appeasement, softened France's stance by saying that
Saddam Hussein's defiance of the international community was "indefensible". He
said: "We Europeans know too well the price of weakness in the face of
dictators. We should therefore maintain our demand for the unconditional return
of U.N. inspectors with the greatest firmness." France is keeping its options
open, reassuring Arab, north African and West Asian countries with which it has
traditionally cordial ties, of continued support, while telling Washington that
it shares U.S. fears about terrorism and the threats posed by Iraq.

The Europeans, particularly the French and the Germans, stress the need for
legitimacy for such an attack, which they believe will come from as broad an
international coalition as possible and with the approval and involvement of the
U.N. By distancing themselves from the U.S. on this issue, the Europeans are
also seeking to buy some insurance from any future attacks by West Asian Islamic
terrorists.

The quarrel over whether or not to invade Iraq is just one in a long string of
differences that have been pulling Europe and the U.S. apart. The Europeans are
upset over the U.S.' "cowboy approach to politics where might is fight is
right," and where the world's only superpower arrogates to itself the right to
break treaties, go back on its word and overrule its allies. The decisions to
subsidise its own farmers and steel-makers (while decrying such subsidies in
Europe and the developing world), scuttle the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM)
Treaty, reject the Kyoto Protocol and demand immunity from war crimes charges
for its own peacekeeping troops have ignited deep anger in Europe.

IN a perceptive paper on U.S.-European relations, conservative U.S. thinker
Robert Kagan contends that this divergence is a reflection of the present power
equation between the two. That Europeans opt for negotiations, legal
instruments, diplomacy, tact, guile, in short the carrot method, because they
are weak, while the U.S. "behaves as powerful nations do", is resulting in
differing and sometimes conflicting assessments of threats and the proper means
of addressing them.

Europe grouses about U.S.' economic and military might, its own strategic
centrality having faded with the fall of the Berlin Wall. If Europe has been
unable to emerge as a true counterweight to the U.S., it is because the
Europeans plumped for the soft option. Since the 1990s, European defence budgets
have shrunk to less than 2 per cent of GDP (gross domestic product). Europe, as
proved by the hostilities in the Balkans and later in Serbia over Kosovo, was
incapable of sustaining a fighting force within its own boundaries, let alone
elsewhere.

Kagan argues that Europe has abdicated its defence options to the U.S. by
accepting U.S. domination of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and
is guilty of over half a century of freeloading. "Rather than viewing the
collapse of the Soviet Union as an opportunity to flex global muscles, Europeans
took it as an opportunity to cash in on a sizeable peace dividend." Despite talk
of establishing Europe as a global superpower, he says, European military
capabilities steadily fell behind those of the U.S.

Europe can, in fact, talk of multilateralism and respect for international law
because its security concerns are met by the Atlantic Alliance. Kagan accuses
Europe of rank opportunism. "Europeans oppose unilateralism because they have no
capacity for unilateralism," he says. "For Europeans the appeal to
multilateralism and international law has a real practical payoff and little
cost."

Since 1992, when the E.U. opted for integration and a single currency, it has
been struggling to establish a common foreign and defence policy. In Kagan's
view, if Europe were saddled with the cost of its own defence, its propensity
for the soft approach, for cajoling and lengthy negotiations would drop
severely, in direct proportion to the increase in its power. This, however, is
not inevitable. Unilateral action need not be the inevitable corollary of
strength, as Wilsonian doctrine has attempted to show in the past and as Europe
itself, an economic if not political superpower, is attempting to prove by
opting for legal international instruments rather than force.

The U.S. would like the Europeans to show more stomach, if not a positive
appetite, for its proposed war on Iraq. Europe, however, finds itself in a
dilemma, indulging in some of the worst fence-sitting in its post-War history.
Despite its avowed distaste for human rights abuses, it maintains cordial ties
and carries on a brisk trade with some of the worst dictatorships in the Arab
world, while dishing out sermons to others in the developing world who are not
as important to its survival. Europe accounts for 38 per cent of the Arab
world's exports. Sixty per cent of these consist of oil and gas, and the figure
is likely to triple by 2020. Clearly, Europe, more dependent on Arab oil than
the U.S., cannot risk such a situation.

Nor can Europe risk annoying the U.S. altogether, for one of the fears dominant
on the old continent is that of U.S. disengagement from NATO. Although Europe
sincerely believes in the importance of renewed engagement to resolve regional
problems such as Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is unlikely that
the Europeans will take measures to counter an illegal invasion of Iraq, whether
in the U.N. Security Council or through other bilateral or multilateral means.