20 - 26 September 2001
Issue No.552
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 20 - 26 September 2001 Issue No.552 |
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Caught in the crossfire?
The United States wants to cement a broad international coalition before retaliating against last week's terrorist attacks. Europe's pious declarations of solidarity, however, might soon unravel, writes Dominic Coldwell
Europe and America have not seen eye to eye lately. Differences have bubbled up over US President George W Bush's opposition to cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, his hands-off approach to the Middle East and plans to build the National Missile Defense shield.
Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic, however, buried the hatchet following last week's terrorist strikes against New York and Washington. The European Union (EU) declared 14 September a day of mourning and called on its 800 million citizens to observe three minutes of silence in an act that the French daily Le Monde has dubbed "a paralysis of solidarity" with the United States. In Germany alone, 200,000 people flocked to a vigil at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. According to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, the attacks constituted "a declaration of war against the free world."
Surprisingly, French communists echoed the same tenor. In an unexpected volte-face, the party's secretary-general Robert Hue broke with his movement's traditional anti-Americanism and stressed the need to "punish the ... instigators of this act of barbarism." The abrupt shift followed revelations ahead of the polls next year that 96 per cent of all Frenchmen favoured complete solidarity with the US after the attack. Regardless of electoral calculations, however, the feeling across much of Europe was that the Old Continent itself had come under attack.
Across the Channel, the public wave of sympathy went well beyond the traditional trans-Atlanticism of Britain's foreign policy. Only three days after the assault, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw speculated that at least 150 Britons had been buried beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center -- more than the total killed in attacks by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) on the British mainland. Tuesday's tragedy in New York thus became the deadliest disaster in Britain's recent memory. The explosion that claimed the lives of 29 people in the Northern Irish Town of Omagh in August 1998 had held the dubious distinction so far.
Not surprisingly, British Prime Minister Tony Blair thundered that the United Kingdom would respond to the atrocity as if it had been perpetrated "in the heart of Britain itself." Never afraid of barking at America's real or imaginary foes, Blair added that states sheltering suspected terrorists would be treated "as enemies themselves." The new get-tough approach came in tandem with the decision of the North Atlantic Council last Thursday to invoke, for the first time ever, Article 5 of the 1949 Washington Treaty. According to this clause, an armed attack against any NATO member constitutes an assault on all. Individually or collectively, member states may retaliate by any means "including the use of armed force." Traditionally, it has been assumed that the army of a clearly identifiable state would shoot from the hip. But as NATO's Secretary-General Lord George Robertson told reporters on Thursday, NATO members now concur that Article 5 covers acts of terrorism as well.
Revelations of Europe's implication in Tuesday's tragedy have only heightened the sense of unease across the continent. The plot thickened when Germany's chief federal prosecutor Kai Nehm announced that the country had sheltered three of the alleged terrorists for years. Mohamed Atta, a 33-year-old Egyptian travelling on a passport from the United Arab Emirates, and Marwan Al-Shehhi, a 23-year-old Emirates' citizen, allegedly were aboard the first aircraft that ploughed right into the World Trade Center.
The two men had studied electrical engineering at Hamburg's technical university and had been trained as pilots in Florida last year. Although Nehm said there was no direct evidence of any links to Saudi-born dissident Osama Bin Laden -- the prime suspect in Tuesday's attacks -- Reinhard Wagner, the head of Germany's domestic intelligence service in Hamburg, contended that the city was home to an extensive network of Bin Laden's supporters.
German police have also launched investigations in the German town of Bochum after the girlfriend of Ziyad Samir Jarrah -- allegedly the pilot of the plane that crashed near Pittsburgh -- reported her lover missing. Searches in two apartments apparently unearthed aviation instruction books. Meanwhile, Belgian and Dutch police have detained eight suspects in connection with the attacks.
The recent revelations have fanned European fears that the continent might soon fall prey to similar atrocities. According to a recent poll, more than 80 per cent of all Britons consider comparable incidents in their country likely. More than 90 per cent favour participation in pre-emptive military action with the United States. However, the link between the fear of terrorism and support for US action is slippery at best. Already, there are dissenting voices. George Galloway, an MP for Britain's ruling Labour Party recently told the Guardian that the strike against America represented "a challenge to the hitherto untrammelled ability of the US to deal out death and destruction." Galloway first raised eyebrows when he openly sympathised with the plight of Iraqi citizens smarting under Anglo-American sanctions.
Despite Blair's brave boasts, a spokesman for Downing Street last Friday also cautioned that Britain could not offer a "blank cheque" to the US, emphasising that any joint action by NATO countries would require joint consultation. The prime minister supposedly told a "sombre" cabinet that London's unstinting support for Washington was likely to swell the country's death toll even further. This is a fear shared across the Channel. It is true that Berlin has largely overcome its traditional reluctance to participate in military missions outside NATO territory since it took part in the Kosovo campaign two years ago. Schröder has promised that Germany will also join possible NATO strikes this time. In fact, the left wing of his Social Democratic Party (SPD) bit its lip on Monday, signalling full support for the Chancellor's gung-ho policy.
According to a recent poll conducted by Deutsche Welle television, however, 91 per cent of all Germans are afraid that their country will soon become embroiled in war. More than 64 per cent are worried that Bush's retaliation will motivate terrorist attacks against Germany. And leaders of the traditionally pacifist Green Party -- Schröder's junior coalition partner -- have signalled opposition to the Chancellor's supposedly premature pledges of trans-Atlantic solidarity. No less vociferously, the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), which retains significant grassroots support in Eastern Germany, has argued that a NATO mission would represent "an escalation, not a de-escalation" of the situation.
France has been no less adamant. Despite his ideological somersaults, the communist party's Hue has emphasised the need to "resist those who are already calling for a war of the West against ... alleged or hastily designated enemies." French politicians of all stripes fear damaging their country's traditionally good relations with the Middle East. In a pointed reference to Bush's talk of a new crusade, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin clarified that "France is combating terrorism, not the Islamic world." His Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine also agreed with Russian counterpart Sergei Ivanov that the United Nations Security Council is the most appropriate venue for co-ordinating the response to terrorism.
Europe's fears of being dragged into an uncontrollable war are real enough if Afghanistan's threat to strike any country participating in American retaliation turns out to be not just another empty platitude.
Meanwhile, statements by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that whoever was not with the US was against it could soon impale the EU on the horns of a dilemma. Privately, several EU officials have already drawn a fine line between solidarity with the US and unqualified support for any retaliatory strikes.
The possibility that European participation in a NATO mission against the suspected terrorists might drag Europe into an uncontrollable confrontation, however, remains remote. NATO officials doubt whether the US will take up NATO's offer in the first place. Washington might well decide to go it alone if Bush fails "to prove to our satisfaction that the attacks came from abroad," a senior NATO official recently said. It is true that Powell favours allied backing, "but if any of the Europeans started kicking up a fuss over procedures and evidence, I can just hear Bush saying: 'to hell with those Europeans. We don't need them'," he added.
The more likely, though no less savoury prospect is that the EU simply will be unable to prevent an escalation of the situation in the wake of American reprisals. This seems to be the real dilemma.
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