The Iraq war is almost universally
regarded as the cause of the worst shock
to Transatlantic relations since World
War II, or at least since the 1956 Suez
crisis. Historians and political scientists
will doubtless debate the long-term significance
of the war and its impact on
U.S.-European relations for many years
to come. In Allies at War, Philip Gordon
and Jeremy Shapiro offer the first indepth
analysis of how and why the war
led to such bitter strains in the alliance.
Gordon is a former director for European
affairs at the National Security
Council during the Clinton administration
and a frequent commentator on Europe
and Transatlantic relations. He is
currently director of the Brookings Institution's
Center on the United States and
Europe, where Shapiro is associate director.
The book is divided into three main
sections. The first traces the historical
origins of the Atlantic alliance and the
post-Cold War evolution of America's
relations with its European allies. The
authors explain that tensions between
the United States and Europe predated
the Iraq war and continued to build
throughout the 1990s. For example,
NATO almost broke apart over the
Kosovo war, and Europeans became increasingly
frustrated with growing
American reluctance to adhere to international
agreements during the latter
years of the Clinton administration.
The second part contains a detailed
account of developments leading up to
the war in Iraq, focusing on the Bush administration's
efforts to obtain United
Nations Security Council authorization
for military action. As it turned out, the
Council agreed to send UN weapons inspectors
to Iraq, but the United States
decided not to seek a second resolution
explicitly authorizing the use of force,
both because of lack of support in the
Council and because Washington believed
that prior resolutions provided
the necessary legal authority. In a balanced
discussion of the diplomacy surrounding
the war, the authors place
plenty of blame on both the United
States and its opponents.
In a recent interview, the authors
said that Bush administration officials
decided to launch "a war of choice with
very little consultation with important
allies. In doing so, "they exaggerated the
threat, they treated allies with disdain,
and they acted with an inexcusable disregard
for the health of the Atlantic alliance
and the wider war on terrorism.
But Gordon and Shapiro also fault
France and Germany for refusing to enforce
UN resolutions for which they had
voted, and for placing their own desires
to act independently above the common
needs of the alliance.
The authors argue that the actions of
France and Germany helped turn a debate
over whether to invade Iraq, which was hardly unexpected given past differences
on how to deal with Saddam Hussein,
into a crisis that called the future of
the alliance into question. The book's
main thesis is that events did not have to
unfold this way. That they did so was
primarily because of decisions made by
leaders on both sides of the Atlantic,
which were influenced by such factors as
clashing personalities and the misreading
of each other's intentions.
But the rift in the alliance was not a
straightforward clash between the
United States and Europe, as it has
sometimes been portrayed. Far from it.
The authors also draw attention to the
differences inside the European Union
over Iraq. Most Europeans opposed the
war, but governments were split on the
issue, with a majority of the now 25 EU
member governments supporting the
United States and a minority backing
France and Germany. These differences
helped spur extensive reflection in Europe
about how to develop a common
EU policy toward the United States, although
the deep divisions exposed by
Iraq are unlikely to be resolved any time
soon.
The third section looks at how to repair
the rift over Iraq and battered U.S.-
European relations in general. It
proposes a joint agenda for Europe and
United States that would include working
together to stabilize and rebuild Iraq
and Afghanistan, to promote peace and
democratic reform in the Middle East
and to continue waging what is expected
to be a long struggle against international
terrorism and the spread of
weapons of mass destruction.
Allies at War is in part the authors'
response to the widely discussed arguments
of the American foreign policy
analyst Robert Kagan, or more precisely
what they refer to as a common but incorrect
interpretation of Kagan, which
holds that the allies are destined to continue
drifting apart because of their divergent
geopolitical perspectives.
As the authors explain, far more
unites the United States and Europe than
divides them. Both face the same main
threats and "only an alliance with a democratic
Europe can give the United
States the resources and the legitimacy it
needs internationally.
The main implication of this analysis is that repairing the Transatlantic
rift will take hard work and a willingness to compromise on both
sides. On the one hand, any U.S. administration will face many
of the same problems in dealing with its European allies as the
Bush administration did in the run-up to the war. On the other
hand, a greater emphasis in Washington on the value of allies
and consultation than has been evident in recent years would help
to overcome the bitter legacy of Iraq. For their part, France
and Germany should review their decisions not to provide troops
to help pacify Iraq and consider other ways to assist WashingtonÁÃs
efforts to promote the emergence of a stable, democratic regime
in Baghdad.
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