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Frustrated with the warmongering and arrogance of the Bush White House, Germany and France are making a historic break with the U.S. Relations may never be the same.
Jan 25, 2003 | As American and British forces continue to flock to the Persian Gulf, a stunning global rift is reaching historic proportions. Not since the end of WWII has Germany, one of America's staunchest allies, refused to support the U.S. on a major foreign policy issue. And now, France, which was instrumental in defining the terms of United Nations Resolution 1441, has opted to join the ranks of the "refusal camp," as it is being called here. Both countries in recent days reiterated that they would block the U.S. request for military and logistical support from NATO to prepare for a war with Iraq. Unthinkable a decade ago, such a move could be a sign that old alliances are in for a profound change.
Appearing to catch Colin Powell off guard during a press conference following an anti-terrorism summit at the U.N., French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin lambasted the idea of waging a war on Iraq, saying that "nothing today justifies...military action." The Washington Post called the surprise declaration "the diplomatic equivalent of an ambush," but it was only the expression of the most widely held view in France, where 77 percent of the population opposes a war. In Germany, the percentage is identical. And while the Bush administration has at times placed great weight on Monday's expected report from the U.N. weapons inspection team, it is considered by most European governments as merely an interim stage in the disarmament process. The Middle East, French President Jacques Chirac says, "does not need another war."
As Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty, a catalyst in creating the European Union, their positions of opposition to war have come into alignment. Signing a joint political declaration, the two leaders underscored their nations' "common historical responsibility towards serving Europe" by broadening their cooperation on the international level. Henceforth, France and Germany will strive to "adopt common positions within international institutions, including the Security Council." The opposition to a U.S.-led strike on Iraq, fluid until now, has solidified around the Franco-German axis.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the burgeoning rift within NATO and the split between Europe and the U.S. over Iraq. "You're thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don't. I think that's old Europe," he said. In those comments and in other ways, the Bush administration seemed to be indicating that it was ready to wage war against Iraq without substantial help from the Continent. But Rumsfeld's remarks and similar signals only further incite top officials and members of the public in those countries that already consider the United States and the Bush White House arrogant and impetuous. The Franco-German axis is the motor behind the development and growth of the E.U., and their collective weight is probably greater than that of all other E.U. nations combined. Nations such as Spain and Italy have yet to commit to either the U.S. or the French position regarding Iraq.
At least six members of the 15-member Security Council have adopted the position that the American administration still hasn't made a good case for attacking Iraq and that the inspectors need to be granted substantially more time. Russia and China, also permanent veto-bearing nations, subscribe to that view.
How deep the chasm between the United States and its traditional European allies will get is anyone's guess. For many French and German analysts, there is a clear distinction between the benevolent power the U.S. symbolized to Western Europeans in the last century, and the America of George W. Bush. On the one hand lies the enlightened America of the New Deal, Jimmy Carter, the elder George Bush and Bill Clinton; on the other hand is the confusing, primal United States of the death penalty, powerful corporate interests, Christian fundamentalism and the Bush doctrine. While they still consider Europe to be the ally of the first America, they argue that it should vehemently oppose the second on principle.
Writing in the London Review of Books, Anatol Lieven has put it most bluntly: America, that elder daughter of the Enlightenment, has become "a menace to itself and to the rest of the world."
