Rift over Iraq war threatens old alliances

By CATHERINE FIELD Herald correspondent

PARIS - The history books are bound to record 2003 as a watershed, a year of ground-shaking change that will rival the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989.

The Iraqi crisis is exposing a deep rift between Europe and America, revealing intense suspicions on both sides and conflicting perspectives on how the world's problems should be addressed.

On one side, there are the hawks in Washington who moan that the "euro-wimps" have betrayed their ally. By using its veto to block Security Council approval for the war, France will have confirmed in their view the uselessness of the United Nations. On the other, there are the Europeans, who see President George W. Bush as a cowboy or a moron bent on an "oil war" that his daddy had failed to finish.

Those facing the crossfire from this viciously escalating dispute are the political leaders who have taken a high-risk strategy, as well as several key institutions that have shaped the post-World War II world.

"The crisis is deep and, I believe, will be long-lasting," says Pascal Boniface, director of France's Institute for International and Strategic Relations.

"Whatever happens in Iraq, the consequences of the war will be a disaster," says Jean-Louis Bourlanges, a legislator in the European Parliament for the centre-right French political party UDF.

"The main instruments for multilateral, legally organised management of the world, the UN, Nato and the European Union, will emerge humiliated, sidelined and divided. In the end, what is at threat is the ability of the civilisation that has sprung up both sides of the Atlantic to work together to tackle the challenges of the 21st century and to jointly influence the future of the planet."

If these predictions are gloomy, it is because many analysts have concluded that, for the past decade or more, the glue that held Europe and America has gradually fallen apart.

The downfall of the Soviet Union has left no more barbarians at the gates to forge a common resolve. The external threat which unified has been replaced by a string of problems that, initially, were low-grade sources of friction.

It took the election of Bush, pushing a conservative America-first with contempt for the environmental issues that are sacred to many Europeans, for the fire to ignite.

One question is what will become of the two European leaders, President Jacques Chirac, of France, and Prime Minister Tony Blair, of Britain, who are playing the most important game of political poker of their careers.

Chirac has made himself the figure around whom opposition to the war has coalesced; gaining huge support from the French electorate, but at the peril of inviting American reprisals. Blair is almost the exact opposite. His staunchly pro-United States policy is rejected by a majority of adult Britons and he is facing a revolt by his own Labour Party.

What happens next could decide their destiny. If the war is quick and clean, and evidence of Saddam's villainy is brought to light, Blair will be vindicated as a courageous leader. If it is prolonged and bloody and no "smoking gun" is found, then he will face the fate of a leader who got involved in a foreign military adventure without public support.

As for Chirac, his hope of avoiding US reprisals seems to lie in getting Russian and Chinese support in the UN Security Council, thus providing safety in numbers. If the Chinese and Russians abstain in the Security Council vote and France alone wields its veto, Chirac will be exposed. A swift, relatively bloodless victory in the war may help obliterate memories in Washington of French perfidy; but if American troops are caught in a quagmire, the US punishment could be cruel.

And the institutions themselves are facing probably the biggest tests of their cohesion.



"At no time in the history of Nato have trends in transatlantic relations seemed so ominous," writes Jacquelyn Davis, an analyst for a US thinktank, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. "The Franco-German relationship has never been easy, but in 2003, the acrimony on both sides of the Atlantic has grown harsh, so much so that it could undermine transatlantic security co-operation."

In the European Union, casualty No 1 is the long-stated goal of forging a common policy on defence and foreign affairs among its neighbours. Iraq has dug a trench between the EU's most powerful countries - France and Germany on one side, which oppose the war, and Britain, Italy and Spain on other.

Chirac admitted as such in a television interview yesterday, but contended that in the aftermath of the conflict there would be "regret" that Europe had failed to tackle this crisis with a single mind.

"The history of Europe is strewn with crises from which it has always emerged strengthened," he argued.

But the ground may be cut from under Chirac's feet, when 10 countries in eastern and central Europe and the Mediterranean join the EU club next year.

Many of them have governments which are fiercely protective of their newly recovered national sovereignty after the end of Soviet domination and are grateful to America for never letting them down.

Their membership is bound to dampen the fervour for "an ever closer union", to use the terms of the EU's declared goal. And the voting arithmetic in the Council of Ministers, the EU's top decision-making body, could leave the once-powerful Franco-German alliance sidelined.

"This is the first major transatlantic crisis since the end of the Cold War," says Dominique Moisi, of a Paris thinktank, the French Institute for International Relations. "It is bizarre: the man who holds the key to the future of transatlantic relations is Saddam Hussein."

Key developments
* Russia and France, which both hold veto power on the United Nations Security Council, said they would vote down the United States-British-backed resolution setting a March 17 ultimatum for Saddam Hussein.

* Russia left open the possibility of approving an amended proposal.

* The US and Britain said they were open to compromise on the resolution. The White House also said a showdown Security Council vote would not come today, but could come anytime later in the week.

* French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin flew to Africa to persuade Angola, Guinea and Cameroon to reject the resolution. President George W. Bush made an urgent round of phone calls to world leaders.

* Secretary of State Colin Powell voiced alarm over the UN inspector's report that Iraq has unmanned drone aircraft capable of dispensing chemical weapons.

* UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned the US it would be in violation of the UN charter if it attacked Iraq without Security Council approval.