Tug of war
As Europe stands divided like never before over Iraq, the massive anti-war demonstrations have taken some of the wind out of the sails of the pro-war Europeans, writes Gamal Nkrumah
"A house divided cannot stand" says the old adage, a saying that rings especially true today as far as Europe is concerned. There is the "old Europe" and the "new Europe"; the European Union and those European nations so far denied entry into the EU; the East and the West. The West has expanded Eastwards and new democracies in Eastern Europe have become religiously pro- American.
But, since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1999, no issue has divided the continent as much as the current talk of a punitive strike against Iraq. Southern and Eastern European states, with the notable exception of Greece, are strong proponents of Washington's determination to strike Baghdad for supposedly evading United Nations weapons inspections. A core group of old European powers headed by France, Germany and Russia strongly oppose war. All told, European public opinion -- north, south, east and west -- is staunchly opposed to war, as the angry and massive demonstrations across Europe have demonstrated.
Tensions are running high. French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder have emerged as the very personification of the anti-war pundits. "War was always an admission of failure and everything must be done to avoid it," Chirac stressed over the weekend. The French president summarily dismissed Eastern Europeans as being "badly brought up" for sympathising with the United States' determination to attack Iraq. Bulgaria, the only Eastern European country with a United Nations Security Council seat, backed a new resolution proposed by the US, Britain and Spain that will give the US a free hand to attack Iraq.
The UN has emerged as a forum where the tensions in European politics are played out. While Britain and Spain, two pro-US European UN Security Council members, believe that a second resolution should be passed confirming Iraqi non-cooperation with the UN weapons inspectors, the French, Germans and Russians publicly disagree. France and Germany are instead proposing a new resolution that will give weapons inspectors four months to complete their job efficiently. Russia, a European power of sorts, and China -- two permanent Security Council member states with veto rights -- back the Franco- German proposal.
The ripples of the growing crisis in confidence between anti-war Europe and pro-war Europe are being carefully monitored by other countries. US officials are still unclear if France and Germany are just trying to get Iraq "off the hook", as US Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested before leaving America for an Asian tour. The Bush administration is still uncertain whether France and Germany will specify how much more time they want to give the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq.
In the meantime, Russia has indicated its backing for France and Germany, and expressed its faith in the UN inspection process. Russian President Vladimir Putin dispatched veteran Arabist and former Russian prime minister, Yevgeny Primakov, to Iraq. "A US war on Iraq will lead the world towards more divisions," said Primakov, who currently heads Russia's Chamber of Commerce and Industries. "It risks dividing the world on the basis of religions and civilisations."
Russia, like France and Germany, has a sizable Muslim minority. There are more than 20 million Muslims in Russia, five million in France and three million in Germany. The presence of large and restive Muslim communities in these European countries might be a factor in determining their foreign policy priorities.
Meanwhile, Günter Pleuger, Germany's ambassador to the UN, was president of the UN Security Council for the month of February -- not a particularly easy start to Germany's two-year term as an elected UN Security Council member.
Standing firmly against a new UN resolution on Iraq, France and Germany argue that the inspection process must continue and that more time is needed for the UN inspectors to determine whether Iraq has disposed of its weapons of mass destruction. They also argue that, so far, the Iraqi authorities have been cooperative enough. Neither country is persuaded by the US case for war. German officials have been consistent in their anti-war statements. "I see absolutely no reason for a new resolution," Schröder said.
Observers, however, note that Germany's endorsement of war as a last resort marks a subtle shift in policy. The massive show of the European public abhorrence of a war has strengthened the hands of the anti-war European nations. Schröder's open hostility to war under any circumstance won the day at the Brussels summit on Iraq on 17 February, with the full backing of Nordic countries and Austria.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was not entirely isolated at the summit. Italian Prime Minister Sylvio Berlesconi and his Spanish counterpart, José Maria Aznar, remained vehemently pro-US and pro-war, despite opinion polls indications of overwhelming public support for the anti-war movement and massive turnout at the protest marches.
