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	US-European Relations Post-Iraq by Peter Gourevitch Council for European Studies   What drives the tension between the US and Europe over foreign policy in Iraq? Policy-makers claim often to be skeptical of social science, but to paraphrase Keynes, they often act on the basis of a theory invented by someone long dead or forgotten or never known. Explaining policy requires some social science!   Looking at different dates gives different answers to this question. Does disagreement begin with whether to go to war in March 2003, or 9/11/2001, or the beginning of the Bush presidency in January 2001, or the end of the Cold War in 1989? If one of the first three dates, then a change of government in the US could produce different policies and better relations with Europe. Causes therefore lie in individuals (Bush, Blair, Chirac, and Schroeder) or in the shifting sands of domestic politics. If the problems precede January 2001, then there are deeper structural variables in play which are less changeable.   Whatever the cause, there is also the matter of consequences. Big effects can have small causes: the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in 1914 is perhaps the most famous example. Can the tensions be overcome to create a cooperative Euro-American relationship, or are alliances like love affairs, once broken, hard to restore?   Let us work backwards. At first, to explain US behavior, the Europeans stressed personality, depicting Bush as a cowboy, ignorant, isolated, stupid. That view has faded. They have seen evidence of shrewdness, focus and determination. If Bush has little direct knowledge of the world, his advisors have both advanced degrees and plenty of experience. So we need to put individual attributes in context and examine the policy ideas themselves, analyze why they have power and why they have been supported in the US.   Europeans disagreed on all key points leading to the war that began in March 2003. They felt there was no real security threat as there were no effective weapons of mass destruction; deterrence would work to contain Saddam (also the view of American realist scholars quite critical of Administration policy); working through multilateral institutions was an important value; avoiding war was a supreme value; war would be long and costly; Iraq would be hard to rebuild; relations with the Arab world would be ruptured beyond repair; war would not advance the cause of better Israel-Palestinian relations; terrorism had wider roots than Saddam. Despite sympathy for the US after 9/11, most Europeans did not believe the connection to Iraq, thus did not see the need to invoke war in self-defense.   The Bush administration disagreed and wanted to show resolve after what it saw as years of weakness toward terrorism, to assert a form of arms control against nuclear weapons and proliferation, and to remake the balance of relationships in the Middle East, especially concerning Israel-Palestine, through regime change. The Cold War was over, new conditions defined the world, and new policies were needed. To Europeans, it seemed the mentality of the Cold War persisted: replace the old enemy with a new one, make simplistic Manichean distinctions.   Could diplomacy have avoided the breach? Quite possibly, though this is hard to prove. Collective enforcement of a tougher inspections regime, backed by force, might possibly have won agreement as policy, had it been sought right after the Afghanistan military campaign had ended. But the Bush team does not appear to have valued collaboration, “building the coalition” as the Bush pere rhetoric put it. Bush fils appears to have wanted regime change from the beginning and thought only force could produce it. France sees its position greatly distorted in US media, and an offer to provide troops after an inspection scenario was swept aside.   Did international institutions “fail”? Institutions, analysts claim, can facilitate cooperation by overcoming collective action problems, sharing information, establishing procedures for dispute resolution, developing shared interests in institutional survival. European theorists of institutions tend to stress norms, values, shared understandings, so that institution theory blends with communication and dialogue. For both camps, analysis blurred with advocacy. Institutions should be preserved, it was argued. Weakening them is a cost to be considered in the evaluation of going to war. But this is like the problem with balance of power theory: is it supposed to be descriptive and predictive or is it a norm, a guide to policy?   Realists were not surprised that the UN couldn’t “prevent” the conflict, nor that NATO and the EU would have trouble managing strong disagreements among its members. In the absence of will, institutions could not find a way. Realists tend to date tensions to the end of the Cold War and the lack of common threat that allows other disagreements to surface. Academic realists were quite critical of US policy on Iraq but on realist grounds: no real threat, too much cost, deterrence was possible. It is not clear whether these American “defense” realists also thought a weakening of international institutions was a serious price to pay.   Many Europeans date problems with US policy to the beginning of the Bush presidency, thus before 9/11. They see an immediate hostility by the Bush administration to multi-lateral institutions and coalitions: the rejection of the Kyoto Treaty, the international criminal court, and test ban agreements with the Soviets, as well as hostile rhetoric about the UN and international entanglements. Many Europeans think the Administration sought a “New ‘new diplomacy’,” rejecting Wilson’s call for international institutions and democracy to replace force and making a sharp break with the alliances dating back to WW II and the Cold War. When the administration invokes Wilsonian ideas about promoting democracy, Europeans doubt its sincerity and commitment, given US support for all sorts of dictatorships and hostility toward nation-building.   Would a Gore presidency have made a difference? In arguing the affirmative, theorists of domestic politics stress political constituencies and institutions of political process. Bush’s policies are supported by half the population, enthusiastically by some of the most activist elements in the party, the kind who vote in primaries. Religious conservatives link up with security conservatives in ways that startle more secular Europe. With southern conservatives moving to the GOP and northern liberals to the Democrats, a key element in the structural foundations of bipartisanship is gone. Another shift lies in the business community. Internationalist business elements stayed with the Democrats to fight anti-international business groups opposing the institutions of free trade, money, finance and foreign aid. In recent years, that alliance has disintegrated: labor has turned against free trade, while business groups coalesce in the GOP to support trade institutions.   Trade vs. security remains a core contradiction in the Republican coalition. Trade treaties involve limits on the US of exactly the kind the GOP rejects on security issues: mechanisms of dispute resolution which could decide against the US. Without these, other countries will not sign agreements to liberalize trade that internationally-oriented US business wants. If tensions rise on security disputes, these could threaten the foundations of the trade agreements.   The same contradiction surfaces when the issues turn from the use of force to nation-building, managing international terrorism, environment, proliferation and a range of other issues where cooperation is needed. If quick military action solved all the issues, the US would indeed need no allies. But it cannot solve all the issues that come from economic weakness, social dislocation, ethnic and religious tension. It cannot alone provide sustainable economic development and growth.   The Democrats are more multi-lateral in desiring and seeking allies, but they split on the proper balance among the environment, human rights, trade and growth. These fractures are partly manageable when control of the While House creates a leadership structure but hard to unite in a coherent critique when out of office. Here we see the effect of institutions: the US system does not sustain a clearly structured opposition as we find in European parliamentary systems.   Thus we find both within and between the US and Europe strong disagreements. Tensions across the Atlantic have grown as each side sees policy disagreement rooted in “civilizational” differences. Kagan’s Venus/Mars distinction is one example (which divides countries Huntington put into one grouping). To many Europeans, American foreign policy is the projection of American culture and values. Europeans dislike the Bush vision of American society: too violent (a high murder rate, death penalty and guns), too negligent of American ideals on civil liberties (the Ashcroft justice department, homeland security, prisoners in Guantanamo Bay), and too little regard for community and social safety net (policies on tax, health, the poor, executive pay which exacerbate inequalities). They see these domestic values projected onto the world: coercion, disregard for the weak, lack of interest in allies, militarism rather than social processes, large populations instead of law and legal processes. The metaphor of Bush as cowboy serves the double function: violence at home makes for violence abroad.   Conversely, Americans see Europeans as projecting their own vision of society, of social welfare and the European Community onto a world where the conditions of cooperation do not exist. The Bush administration scorned European objections of principle as narrow national self-interest (French and Russian oil and debt interests) or personal gain (a desperate electoral ploy by Schroeder).   If it is the nature of societies which matter, elections and change of leadership make little difference. Explaining policy by a national attributes (American, French) implies that it matters not which party or person occupies the White House, 10 Downing Street, or the Elysee Palace. But most people on both sides of the ocean don’t really believe this. Blair went against popular opinion, Chirac rode it. This implies substantial leeway for leaders in relation to audience costs. Elections can make a difference, and they turn on many issues besides foreign policy: employment, taxation, abortion, gun control, trust, money, religion. Life and death decisions in foreign policy, cooperation vs. isolation, may indeed be a function of who turns out at meetings in the cold winter evenings at caucuses. Socialism, George Orwell said, “takes too many evenings.” “L’esprit de clocher” can shape what happens as much as grand design.   Jack Snyder’s Myth of Empire captures the situation well: the projection of power to dominate involves a script about the world which wins or loses not because of objective conditions in the global environment, but because of domestic political alignments. Culture involves the strategic use of meaning in a dynamic process. This analysis needs in turn a political context: why are some scripts advocated, and resonant, while others are inhibited and contained? Who supports them, who are, in Weber’s terms, the “idea bearing classes,” and how do their ideas prevail? The US and Europe continue to have much in common and continue to cooperate on terrorism and other arenas. They could let Iraq disagreements drift to ever-greater conflict. But this would be a choice, neither inevitable, nor necessary. Visit the related web page
	Disenchanted with Politics? Who in the World is Not? by Clive Crook The National Journal USA   Published: Nov. 18, 2005   If the world today faces challenges that call for strong leadership, it had better watch out. When did the governments of the big Western democracies last look this feeble - and all at the same time?   At home, the Bush administration continues to watch its approval ratings sink. In last week"s elections, Republicans could be observed delicately distancing themselves from President Bush - and some who chose not to wish they had. Sen. Jon Corzine, who won the New Jersey governorship for the Democrats by a surprisingly wide margin, mocked his opponent as "George Bush"s choice." You cannot help but wonder what so enfeebled an administration can achieve in its remaining three years.   The Bush administration"s best friend in Europe, Tony Blair, is also in deep trouble. Last week, Blair"s attempt to pass a new security law (which, among other things, would have allowed the government to detain suspects without charge for 90 days, up from the current 14) was defeated in the House of Commons. This was a much more shocking development than most Americans probably realize. British prime ministers, who normally rule as elected dictators (a Tory minister who knew what he was talking about coined that phrase), are unaccustomed to losing votes in Parliament. And Blair had staked his reputation on this one. The fact that so many of his own Labor members in Parliament were willing to rebel against him is telling: It means that they think he is on the way out, and sooner rather than later.   German politics is in a state of something close to paralysis as well. An inconclusive election two months ago has produced, finally, a coalition of the unwilling: The conservative Christian Democrats have formed a power-sharing government with the leftist Social Democrats, under the leadership (bitterly resented on the left) of the Christian Democrats" Angela Merkel. It is hard enough to see this coalition surviving, let alone getting anything done. And the list of things that need to be done in Germany is long.   But America, Britain, and Germany all look fine compared with France, which is still in shock after the sustained and widespread rioting of recent days. Jacques Chirac"s government was slow to respond to the crisis, and it probably made matters worse with injudicious comments from on high (the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, called the rioters "scum"). The government is none too clear on what to do next.   It is tempting to draw connections - and why not, just for a moment, surrender to temptation? After all, some of the links are real, though not as tidy as you could wish.   One such link is Iraq. It goes without saying that Bush and Blair are both paying a heavy political price for the war. The failure to find weapons of mass destruction, which both leaders had emphasized as a primary reason for removing Saddam Hussein, and the costly, bungled execution of the postwar strategy, have bled support from both leaders. Each is tainted by the suspicion of dishonesty. At a minimum, there was less than full disclosure of official doubts over the WMD intelligence. Many voters in both countries believe they were just plain lied to about it.   Both leaders competence is called into question, too. In Bush"s case, this is straightforward: Responsibility for the postwar mess rests ultimately with him. For Blair, the coalition"s junior partner, the charge of incompetence has a different cast: The United States duped him into war, some say, or else he simply failed to identify and assert Britain"s interests. Last week, Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain"s ambassador to Washington before the war, gave an account, splashed across Britain"s front pages, that was less than flattering: In dealing with the White House, he said, Blair was meek, inattentive to detail, and carried away by self-righteousness.   Bush"s troubles are about competence more broadly: Iraq is only part of what is dragging him down. The Democrats charge that he is an ideological extremist never got them very far, because Bush seems too “likable” - and too muddled - for that description to fit. But the charge of incompetence certainly sticks, and if you go with that line, Iraq falls neatly into place. Next, add the Hurricane Katrina fiasco. And while charges of incompetence and cronyism are still engulfing the presidency over that episode, the White House, as if to validate this whole line of criticism, goes and nominates Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court. Bush"s opponents could not have scripted it more to their liking.   Iraq, and the issue of Islam and the West, also have a connection to events in France - but it is tenuous, and one should not make too much of it. France opposed the war, of course. And although most of the rioters are Muslims (typically, immigrants from North Africa), they seem driven less by religious or even secular anti-Western zeal than by a straightforward sense of economic and social exclusion from mainstream French society.   France has tried harder than most European countries - harder than multicultural Britain - to assimilate its immigrants, but seems to have had no more success than the others. And France, like much of Europe (but again, unlike Britain), has a chronic unemployment problem, and the burden of this falls most heavily on African immigrants. Unemployment rates among young Muslims run as high as 40 percent. When the failure to assimilate immigrants and their children - and thus to create a sense of belonging and participation - combines with a lack of jobs, the result is toxic. In a way, however, this is almost reassuring: Better to be dealing with fury arising from economic or racial disadvantage, bad as that may be, than from religious grievance. But, given the facts on the ground, it would not take much to give the riots in France an even more sinister, religious-war aspect.   High unemployment and a persistent sense of economic underachievement lie behind the political difficulties of many other European governments. Germany is a case in point. There, it is telling that the Social Democrats, who opposed the war in Iraq and thereby, in the eyes of most German voters, were on the right side of the argument, have gained very little from it politically. Germans understand that their economy needs to be fixed - that unemployment is too high and growth too sluggish. And they agree that their economy, not Iraq, or security more broadly, is the key issue. But they are hopelessly confused about the measures needed to fix the problem - hence this unstable and deeply divided governing coalition.   The encompassing theme, if there is one, is powerlessness. In all four countries, people feel that their governments are wrestling with issues that are beyond them. In no case, though, do they see a clear alternative to the government or policies they already have. It is a moment of maximum disenchantment with politics.   If the world needs strong leadership, this article began, it had better watch out. Does it, though? The question is worth asking. There are worse things than weak government: Strong government dedicated to (or inadvertently serving) bad ends, for instance. Inactivity is a seriously underrated trait in politics, in ordinary times at least. But these are not normal times. All four countries face enormous domestic challenges, including (but not limited to) the need to provide incomes and health care to their rapidly aging populations. Planning for that demographic transition requires difficult balances to be struck, across generations and within them. Who is going to lead that effort in the United States, or in Britain, France, or Germany? The answer today would appear to be, none of the above.   The world faces too many other challenges that will not wait, many of them requiring international action - on development, for instance, on the threat of pandemic disease, on international trade and finance, on climate change. And looming over everything is the fact that the West still faces implacable enemies who will, one day soon, get their hands on WMD. One of the biggest costs of the misadventure in Iraq is that it has - to some extent, as yet unknown - inhibited and disarmed America and its friends in that life-or-death struggle. If you doubt this, watch Iran"s continuing defiance of the world over its nuclear program.   So, yes, the world as a whole needs strong leadership - especially in the United States. The failure of France and Germany to adopt policies that are good for jobs is costly, to be sure, but mainly for citizens of those countries. Blair"s difficulties are an absorbing human and political drama, with much at stake for Britain"s future direction; but again, it is mostly a local issue. For the world as a whole, the indispensable actor is the United States. The enfeeblement of the Bush administration is a setback not just for Americans but for everybody else as well - except, of course, for those enemies of the West.   Somewhere in there, maybe, is a consoling thought. If the reason that terrorists attack is to destabilize Western governments, why bother just now? Our leaders are doing so well unassisted.   (Clive Crook is a senior writer for National Journal magazine, where "Wealth of Nations" appears).
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