PARIS - The Bush government's Phony War against Iraq now has lasted longer than the Phony War of 1939-1940. With each month of delay, opposition to the American plan to invade Iraq has intensified. The administration's manners in campaigning for war have provoked a real anti-Americanism in West European opinion, going much beyond mere dissent on this one issue.During the 11 months since the administration made public its intention to cause "regime change" in Iraq, international markets and the international economy have foundered in uncertainty about the war.This uncertainty, which businessmen and investors hate, has smothered the international recovery previously expected to follow the bust of the high-tech bubble. The Bush people seem not to have noticed.The American Phony War is damaging the international economy, the principal international security and political institutions, and what is left of the American reputation for seriousness. Yet until the U.S. military buildup started this winter, Washington's policy toward Iraq was little more than bullying bluster, which Saddam Hussein was able to turn to his own advantage.Despite having declared a policy of preemptive war, and saying that he was free to strike Iraq as he wished, ignoring international legality, President George W. Bush seems to have been convinced by Secretary of State Colin Powell that he would do better to have allies and a veneer of international approval. The administration seems not to have understood, however, that there was no point in going to the UN Security Council if the United States intended to ignore other opinions and only wanted endorsement for what it had already said it intended to do.The trip to the United Nations thus simply provided time for mobilization of diplomatic and popular opposition to U.S. plans. The result has weakened the administration's domestic as well as international positions.Washington lost the first round in the Security Council, where it thought it could easily prevail. The new U.S. (or Anglo-American-Spanish) resolution, circulated on Monday, also seems unlikely to pass, even without a veto.Washington also unwisely tried to "bounce" NATO into deploying a defense of Turkey against Iraq, a threat Turkey would only face if the United States invaded Iraq. This backfired, blocked by Belgium, France and Germany, eventually finding an obscure compromise at the military level.Washington's one success has been to split the European Union.The incompetence of all this is what surprises. Never before has the Iraqi despot had so many governments trying to prevent an attack on him. Never before has opinion in the liberal democracies been so alienated from the United States.The president and his men have put their own team in a hole so deep that when Washington does go to war against Iraq, as it soon will, it is unlikely to have any major allies left other than the governments of Britain, Spain and Poland.Washington says that what thus far has happened in the Security Council threatens to demonstrate the UN's "irrelevance," since the UN is relevant only when it endorses U.S. decisions. NATO found a compromise on Turkey, but after the Belgian-Franco-German revolt, Washington will never again go to NATO on any serious matter.Washington is delighted to have split "new Europe" from "old Europe," but may actually have done old Europe a favor. Old Europe is very close to a European Union membership expansion motivated not by interest but by a sense of obligation toward the former Warsaw Pact states. This expansion would end any possibility for a federal Europe, or even for a "Europe of nations" capable of an independent global role.The old Europeans now are inclined to question, rethink or postpone expansion, or even to reformulate it so that the EU has first- and second-class members. Thus Washington has quite possibly made an activist, rival Europe more, rather than less, likely.
Published Thursday, February 27, 2003 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
