In the name of the West?
Mohamed Khaled Al-Azaar* reads between the lines of the declaration by eight European leaders of support for a US war on Iraq
The publication in January of an open letter by eight European leaders declaring their support for the US war on Iraq is a milestone in US efforts to overcome European opposition to a war on the Gulf country. Though the letter sparked conflict among some European leaders, with it the US came closer to establishing and legitimising an international coalition against Iraq that it claims to lead. This emerging coalition calls into question the oft-heard statement that Washington has no real partners in its Iraq policy, with the exception of Britain and Israel.
The truth is that Europe is experiencing a state of acute political and intellectual anxiety, on both the popular and official levels, owing to the difficulty it is facing in forging a unified stance with respect to the impending US campaign. The continent has not experienced such a situation for quite a long time. We all remember in 1991 how Washington managed to enlist in record time most European countries in its campaign to liberate Kuwait. But this time it appears that the opposition of important European nations -- notably France and Germany -- is more than Washington is willing to take.
The publication of the letter coincided with the appearance of the pesky Bonn-Paris axis, particularly bothersome to Britain, America's Trojan horse in Europe. More important than the timing of the letter, however, is its profound conceptualisation of the relationship between the trans-Atlantic West and the rest of the world.
The authors of the letter revealed largely hidden aspects of the European political mind when they stated that the US and its values are the extension of Europe and its values. "These values," they claim, "crossed the Atlantic with those who sailed from Europe to help create the United States of America". But terrorists are threatening to destroy these shared values, as the attacks of 11 September showed us. According to the letter, the only way to protect the trans-Atlantic bond linking the peoples and governments of Europe and America is to steadfastly resist terrorists and weapons of mass destruction. After the letter mentions the brave and generous role the US played in twice liberating Europe in the 20th century -- once from the Nazis and again from Communism -- it states that "the trans-Atlantic relationship must not become a casualty of the current Iraqi regime's persistent attempts to threaten world security."
In this way the authors of the letter strive to create a link in the mind of the reader between the terrorism of 11 September and the Iraqi regime, ultimately conflating the attack on Iraq with the historical alliance against Nazism and Communism. To divert attention from this concept of a Western cultural bond, the letter's authors have instead focussed on the "global nature" of the Iraqi threat as a means of polarising others and bringing them in line with European and US policy.
The letter states that "the Iraqi regime and its weapons of mass destruction represent a clear threat to world security." In such a way it attempts to globalise the US view of the Iraqi crisis, contravening both truth and logic in the process. Europe itself -- not to mention the rest of the world -- is still divided over the US's tyrannical approach to the crisis. The letter's authors overstepped their boundaries when they spoke in the name of Europe -- indeed in the name of the West as a whole. And they violated the freedom of choice of the international community as a whole when they announced their intention to "rid the world of the danger posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction".
We might have been able to understand the concern of these eight leaders for peace and global stability if their zeal to destroy Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had been paired with a declaration of support for the principle of non-proliferation, or if they had made an even passing reference to the general threat represented by the global or regional spread of weapons of mass destruction. This might have absolved them of accusations of bullying Iraq while turning a blind eye to other nations that have transgressed the principle of non-proliferation (India and Pakistan), or challenged it (North Korea), or simply ignored it (Israel).
Even more deserving of our attention is how the letter pointedly denies the fact that there is still no proof of a connection between Baghdad and the attacks of 11 September or international terrorism in general. Moreover, as long as weapons inspections are still underway, we can only assume that claims that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction are false. After all, if we are so sure such weapons do exist, then why undertake inspections in the first place? As the US threatens Iraq, we are being asked to heed its claims without the provision of evidence to back them up. This position can only be justified by a call to close ranks and rally around a shared political and cultural ideal -- a message that permeates the letter from the beginning to the end.
The legal and logical context of America's Iraq policy is not enough to explain the letter written by the leaders of eight European countries (Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Denmark, and Poland). We must look, then, for an explanation elsewhere, and I believe it can be found in the letter's digression on the common values that unite Europe and America across the Atlantic. The use of these terms suggests a siege mentality on the part of the authors, reminiscent of that in the clash of civilisations approach to world politics. Talk of a threat to world security and the shared responsibility of the international community to deal with Iraqi weapons is no more than a smokescreen designed to cover up the underlying message.
Fortunately for those who do not believe in a clash of civilisations, the provocative letter does not express the opinions of the multitude of powers that make up the Western world. The US administration cannot yet rest assured that its discourse on the Iraqi crisis constitutes the primary voice of authority. Indeed, the contents of the letter may have even hurt the US position if it was understood as we have presented it. Whether consciously of unconsciously, the letter's authors have raised the spectre of a clash of civilisations. Let us imagine, for example, the anxiety the letter would have unleashed among Arabs if every European leader had signed it. That would have only confirmed the gap between the East and West, kindling feelings of animosity towards the US which would extend to the rest of the trans-Atlantic Western world to include all Europeans, regardless of the distinctions we currently make between moderates and extremists, the just and the unjust.
It is perhaps these fears, along with other factors, that prevented all of Europe from signing the letter. Though the caution and responsibility showed by those who refused to sign the letter are heartening, the future of Arab-European relations -- and perhaps Western and Eastern relations as a whole -- now depends on refuting the contents of the letter and subduing the conflict buried in the minds of those who participated in it.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 13 - 19 March 2003 (Issue No. 629)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/629/op12.htm