Europe will not be fooled by the U.S. again
Oliver Roy has a piece in today's Tribune, he argues that Europe will not be so quiet the next time the US decides categorically on war. He is a specialist on the Islamic world at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.
After Baghdad's fall, Tehran, Damascus and Riyadh should understand that America is back. The Israelis, for their part, are now insisting that the Iranian nuclear program be dealt with immediately. Pentagon officials hint that Syria is the next target.
The idea is to force Damascus and Tehran to cut off terrorist groups like Hezbollah, which means depriving both regimes of their ideological legitimacy, which in turn would weaken their grips on their populations. Is it simply a coincidence that the draft resolution on Iraq went to the Security Council just as Secretary of State Colin Powell was heading to Jerusalem?
This American agenda is very risky and full of pitfalls, but it is logical, perhaps laudable, and should have been put on the table. At least then the real issues could have been debated. .
The problem is that no American official ever bothered to express the real motivation to the usual allies. One reason for this partial disclosure may have been that the consensus in Washington was built only on the lesser aspect - removing Saddam. .
But the broader, regional plan could at least have been privately conveyed by President George W. Bush to his European counterparts. It was not. Bush does not like to travel and meet his peers, in contrast to his father and President Ronald Reagan. No private contacts were maintained where ideas could be put forward without being couched in official statements. The State Department consistently referred only to the restricted agenda (terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and tyranny) and systematically dismissed any idea of a broader agenda. .
Any European diplomat or expert who addressed American officials about the broader goals being discussed in the many think tanks close to the Pentagon - democratization, reshaping the Middle East, getting to Iran and Syria after Baghdad - were told that such debates did not reflect official views. Would Europe have accepted the real agenda? Certainly not. But at least the debate would have been based on the relevant issue: Does it make sense to reshape the Middle East through military pressure? .
Thus there is no reason for Old Europe to repent today. To join a coalition means, at the very least, being told about the whole strategy and not just being enlisted blindly in battle. Europe has its own concerns: pacifist public opinion, proximity to the Middle East, a large population of Muslim citizens far more vocal than that of the United States. The fact is, the Bush administration's long-term agenda will be very difficult without real allies and an international umbrella. The situation in Iraq will soon remind the American public that U.S. troops are, in legal terms, an army of occupation. Hence last week's United Nations olive branch. .
Unless the traditional allies and the United Nations are given a real role, America will be obliged to rule Iraq for years and to keep tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of troops there.
Washington has said that it can create a friendly, democratic and stable Iraq within two years. Forget it: Achieve two of those adjectives and consider yourselves lucky. There is no democracy without nationalism, and the Iraqis will sooner or later challenge the American presence. The United States cannot stand alone when dealing with the driving force in the Middle East. This is neither Islamism nor the appetite for democracy, but simply nationalism - whether it comes in the guise of democracy, secular totalitarianism or Islamic fervor. .
4:02:25 PM 
|
