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| Europe |
| Euros starting to come around? |
| 2005-03-21 |
| After Pascal Bruckner publicly backed the U.S.-led war in Iraq in 2003, anonymous callers threatened him by phone. Strangers insulted him on the street. Friends and colleagues told him that he had taken a gutsy but mistaken stance against the mighty antiwar tide in France. Two years later, the prominent French novelist is hearing very different reactions. "People are saying that even if Americans are making a lot of mistakes, they are changing things," said Bruckner, who supported ousting Saddam Hussein but is sharply critical of the Bush administration's handling of the conflict, "while Europe -- and especially France -- remains terribly conservative. We're the world champions of the status quo." Since Iraq's Jan. 30 elections, and fledgling signs of democracy elsewhere in the Middle East, doubts are spreading among scattered European pundits, politicians and ordinary citizens who once staunchly opposed the war. "The Middle East moves: Should one thank Bush?" France's Le Monde newspaper asked in a front-page headline this month. "Could George W. be right?" echoed an article in Germany's Der Spiegel newspaper. "In private, I've heard a number of times after this election in Iraq that Bush was right -- in his determination to go along with the political process in Iraq, and to commit himself to change," said Iraq's ambassador to France, Mowafak Abboud. "And I've heard this from diplomats and politicians." To be sure, the second guessing remains only a small aspect of tangled and shifting transatlantic sentiments, two years after the first U.S. bombs were lobbed into Iraq. While they now talk about helping in Iraq's reconstruction, French President Jacques Chirac and other war opponents argue the conflict has made the Middle East -- and the rest of the world -- a more dangerous place. And after back-to-back fence-mending visits to Europe by Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, some analysts predict potential squalls over matters ranging from European efforts to lift an arms embargo on China to recent nominations of two Bush administration hawks to fill key U.N. and World Bank posts. "We had a change in the weather system with the Bush visit. The clouds separated and the sun shone down for a week or so," said Richard Whitman, head of the European program at Chatham House, a London policy institute. "But I think there are clearly difficulties." Another area of transatlantic disagreement -- Iran -- surfaced again Friday, during a four-way meeting in Paris among European heads of state. French and German leaders endorsed Russian plans to build a nuclear reactor plant in southern Iran, which Washington opposes. With general elections expected in May, British Prime Minister Tony Blair is fighting slumping popularity polls, largely because of Iraq. "Blair was once Labor's election winner. Now he seems to be their election loser," said Whitman. Nor is Blair the only European leader paying a big price for his allegiance to Bush and to the Iraq conflict. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced he would consider withdrawing Italian troops from the U.S. -led coalition -- a move other European leaders already have undertaken. Berlusconi had ignored public antiwar sentiment in sending Italian forces to Iraq. But the unintentional killing of an Italian intelligence agent by U.S. forces in Iraq caused an outpouring of popular outrage. Like Blair, Berlusconi also faces national elections next year. One of Bush's closest European allies -- Spain's Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar -- was ousted from power last March, largely because of Madrid's involvement in the war. "The majority of Spaniards are still against the Bush administration," said Antonio Remiro, a political science professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid. But he added that relations between Washington and Spain's current Socialist government are improving. Once-strong views on Iraq are fading across much of Europe, and leaders have picked up the Bush administration mantra of putting Iraq war differences behind. The two sides have closed ranks in opposing Syrian forces in Lebanon, and in coaxing recent advances in the Middle East peace process. "I think we've begun a new chapter in U.S. relations with France and with the European Union," said a senior official at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, echoing the views of European diplomats. The European Union, bitterly divided over the war, is also coming together on Iraq's reconstruction. While refusing to join NATO training missions inside Iraq, France, Germany and Spain all have offered to train Iraqi security forces outside the country. The EU plans to open a Baghdad office to coordinate the training of hundreds of Iraqi judges, prosecutors and prison guards. And Europeans are now discussing hosting an international conference on Iraq this year to coordinate reconstruction efforts. "Iraq is behind us," said Guillaume Parmentier, director of U.S. studies at the French Institute for International Relations, in Paris. "Because now the deed is done, and we all have to live with it. "The Americans have to live with the fact it's much harder than they thought. And the Europeans have to live with the fact it has to be handled, and cannot collapse. Because if it collapses, it will endanger our security." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #3 It's not behind us. The shit storm is just starting from the American side. Americans owe many French, Germans, et. al. many buckets full of hate. Fight or live on your knees with your muslim |
| Posted by: ed 2005-03-22 12:06:32 AM |
| #2 Euros starting to come around? Who knows, some more bitch slapping and they may wake up one day.... |
| Posted by: Sobiesky 2005-03-21 10:30:37 PM |
| #1 " 'I think we’ve begun a new chapter in U.S. relations with France and with the European Union,' said a senior official at the U.S. Embassy in Paris..." Yes, four more years of Bush without the niceties of a re-election campaign to inhibit him. Pass the popcorn. |
| Posted by: Tom 2005-03-21 9:07:09 PM |