European leaders fear religious war

Europe's heart is with America, but CATHERINE FIELD finds little support for an all-out war.

PARIS - Europe has united in outrage against the terrorist attacks on the United States, the country that came to its aid against Hitler and shielded its democracies during more than 40 years of Soviet threat.

Across the 15 countries of the European Union, flags flew at half-mast, church services were held and millions of people, many in tears, stood in silence for three minutes.

Nato, in an act unprecedented in its history, invoked Article Five of the North Atlantic Treaty, the clause committing all alliance members to defend a member which comes under attack.

But even amid this sea of emotion, Europe is signalling to President George W. Bush that he does not have open-ended support for a "war against terrorism", a notion some leaders find worryingly simplistic.

There is concern that any misdirected crusade against a small, shadowy group of Islamic extremists could inflame sentiment among the millions of Muslims living in Western Europe and threaten moderate regimes across the Arab world.

The risk of a religious conflagration is in many minds, imposing a potential crimp on how far Europe can or will support Bush.

"I say to our Arab and Muslim friends, neither you nor Islam is responsible for this," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said pointedly. "If, as appears likely, it is so-called Islamic fundamentalists, we know they do not speak or act for the vast majority of decent, law-abiding Muslims."

The French Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, said: "We are not at war against Islam or the Arab-Muslim world. To show human, political and functional solidarity does not deprive us of being able to think for ourselves."

The biggest source of European doubt is whether the terrorist mastermind - suspected to be Osama bin Laden, the renegade Saudi fundamentalist - can be destroyed quickly and effectively.

The Americans have a disastrous record with smart, surgical military operations of this kind. Fiascos such as the Bay of Pigs, the attempt to rescue the hostages in Iran and the clumsy invasion of Grenada suggest that such operations are inevitably compromised by inter-service rivalry and leaks.

More America's style are big operations out in the open, where the Pentagon can use its crushing superiority in air power, tanks and ships. Such a case was Desert Storm, which set down a clear goal and operational rules that were acceptable to all of America's allies and were endorsed by the United Nations Security Council.

No such clarity yet exists in Bush's war against terrorism. Instead, the likely target is a shadowy figure who, as was shown last week, is clearly able to sidestep US detection. Any reprisal that needlessly kills innocents will weaken support in the West, which portrays itself as the defender of justice and international law.

"I very much hope that the military action of the United States, whose need for a counterstrike is understandable, will be very precise," said German parliamentary Speaker Wolfgang Thierse, warning that any bad misjudgment could bring a "spiral of violence."

Another challenge for Bush lies on the diplomatic front.

Having spent the first eight months of his presidency in isolationist mode, he now discovers that he needs international cooperation to conduct his war, such as pooling intelligence, getting logistical support or overflight rights for air strikes.

"The Americans will propose a deal to Pakistan's military rulers to carry out a military operation against bin Laden. The United States needs their agreement to strike in Afghanistan," said Olivier Roy, a specialist on Islam at France's National Centre for Scientific Research.

"The problem, though, is that the Pakistani military could find themselves facing an uprising by a million fundamentalists."

If Bush wants international cooperation, he must take on board European and Russian objections to his planned missile defence system, a project now proven by events to be an absurdity, and he must address Muslim anger at the United States' one-sided support for Israel.

For many European thinkers, if the United States wants to marginalise bin Laden and other Islamic radicals, it has to restrain Israel or at least not acquiescence in its colonisation of the West Bank - a task that may be almost unthinkable for Bush.

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