6 Reasons Why So Many Allies Want Bush To Slow Down
By Johanna McGeary
Sunday, January 26, 2003
1. WE NEED TO SEE MORE PROOF ON IRAQ
Many Europeans aren't convinced that Saddam Hussein really poses a graver threat now than the one they have learned to live with since the Gulf War. They feel Bush's indictment of Saddam's brutal character and sins is old news and want to know: What's so dangerous about Iraq today that only war can save us from? Most don't share Bush's obsessive conviction that he already "knows" Saddam Hussein is hiding stockpiles of illicit biological and chemical weapons and is close to obtaining a nuclear one. Of course, many Europeans suspect Saddam has dangerous stuff; they understand the arguments that he is a bad guy who may do worse things some day. Yet the forbidden weaponry turned up so far is pretty tame: 16 undeclared chemical warheads, illegal importation of 200 missile engines and the disappearance of some high explosives that could be used for nuclear warheads. Also uncovered were documents that describe a technique used to enrich uranium. So most Europeans want to be shown a fresh, momentous piece of evidence before they'll back a war.
2. INSPECTIONS SHOULD LAST LONGER
Many Europeans recoiled last week when Bush declared that his patience had run out and judged the inspections a failure, even before the U.N. received its first formal report. "This business about more time, how much time do we need," said the President, "to see clearly that [Saddam's] not disarming?" Yet the French contend the simple presence of inspectors has effectively frozen Saddam's programs and that kind of containment is better than war.
With the exception of the U.S., every one of the 15 members of the Security Council wants inspections to continue beyond this week's report, says a Council diplomat. Even the staunchly supportive British are not eager to fight soon. While dutifully repeating Washington's "weeks, not months" mantra about the end of inspections, a British official admits "we need to give [chief inspector Hans] Blix the time he needs."
At issue is not just whether the inspectors have had a fair shot in two months at uncovering the suspect weapons or verifying that they are gone. It's whether the whole U.N. process feels legitimate or like a sham. Washington is now seen as wiggling out of its commitment. European governments want to be able to convince the world, especially the Muslim part, that all other options were exhausted before force was used.
3. THE U.N. MUST BE THE ONE TO AUTHORIZE WAR
For Europe, the key to the whole diplomatic enterprise is to keep the U.S. under the U.N. umbrella. Even in the most pro-war country, Britain, 77% of citizens in one survey said they would oppose joining a U.S.-led war without a U.N. blessing.
The Bush team would be happy to have an explicit resolution if possible but say they're ready to fight alonewith just a "coalition of the willing"if the U.N. doesn't step up. They won't even try for a second vote unless they know they can win, since defeat could damage prospects for pulling together an ad hoc alliance.
For many Europeans, though, a U.N. war resolution addresses something more than merely Iraq; it's a means to maintain global order and international law. Bush seems to regard international institutions as a nuisance and thinks Europe hides behind legalisms to pretend that brutal force isn't sometimes necessary in a messy world. But if Washington acts without a U.N. blessing, it sets an ominous precedentif it's O.K. for the U.S. to use force whenever it chooses, then why can't other states claim the same privilege?
4. INVADING IRAQ DISRUPTS THE WAR ON TERROR
Europeans worry that the U.S. hasn't carefully thought through the conflict but has blithely put its faith in best-case assumptions. U.N. diplomats hear rumblings from Afghanistan that al-Qaeda will strike there when the U.S. strikes Iraq; the terrorists could just as easily retaliate in Europe or America. The U.S., advised Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, "must be careful not to take unilateral steps that might threaten the unity of the entire [anti]terrorism coalition." Would-be terrorists are all too likely to embrace violence as a reaction to what they see as an unjust American war on Islam. At the least, think Europeans, a war with Iraq will absorb energy and resources that might otherwise be concentrated against al-Qaeda.
While Washington proposes that the demise of Saddam will lead to a new era of democracy throughout the Middle East, Europeans think it could just as well spur chaos.
5. COWBOY BUSH IS BACK, AND HIS STYLE GRATES
When you poke under Europe's high-minded objections, you discover a lot of hostility toward Bush personally, whom a U.S. diplomat ruefully calls the "toxic Texan." His rhetoric plays better in Crawford than in Calais. Europeans are offended by his swagger, tough talk and invocations of God and evil. "People in Germany feel threatened by such wording," says Ludger Volmer, foreign affairs spokesman for the Green Party, and they dislike identifying an enemy with evil, oneself with good.
"Politicians here," says Grald Duchaussoy, 27, a Paris office worker, "don't speak with his language." A former British cabinet minister in the pro-American Conservative Party said he considered Bush "terrifying," "ignorant," "a prisoner of the religious right" and "like a child running around with a grenade with the pin pulled out." It's no secret across the Atlantic that Bush's people frequently call their allies "Euro-wimps."
6. AMERICA'S FOREIGN POLICY IS TOO ARROGANT
Many Europeans complain not just about Bush's style but about his substance as well. They disagree with a broad range of his policies, ranging from his opposition to the Kyoto treaty on global warming to his support of the death penalty. The gravest gulf comes over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where Europeans believe Bush's inaction and support for Israel lend credence to Islamist claims that the war on terrorism and the war on Iraq are really a war against Islam.
To many Europeans, this war looks like U.S. imperialism. And hypocrisy: they don't see why diplomacy can deal with North Korea's nuclear-weapons program but not with Iraq's, or why U.N. resolutions should be enforced on Iraq but not on Israel. Europeans, "see the Americans harnessing their superpower status not to the greater interest of the world but to its own national interests."
Bush's provocative doctrine of pre-emptive warand Iraq is its first exampleplus his Administration's triumphalist tone boil down, in European eyes, to a dismissive message: We're strong; you're not; so shut up and do what we want. Says Lousewies van der Laan, a Dutch member of the European Parliament: "They need the rest of the world more than ever, and they seem to be going out of their way to offend it."
--From Time magazine