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Posted Sunday, Jan. 12, 2003; 2.09 p.m. GMT
So, while the current model isn't your father's anti-Americanism, it is in some ways more volatile, especially because there seem to be more and more ways in which Europeans and Americans are not alike. Differences over Iraq have been bolted onto a bridge that has been creaking under many other strains since Bush came to power: U.S. failure to back the Kyoto accords on global warming, the Biological Weapons Convention, the Landmine Convention, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty or the International Criminal Court; his decision to back steel tariffs and $52 billion in farm subsidies despite preaching free trade (a charge of which the E.U. is equally guilty); and, above all, abandoning Bill Clinton's intense engagement in the Middle East peace process.
Blair has found Bush's apathy toward the Middle East so frustrating that he finally sought to convene an all-party conference of his own in London, and then settled for a smaller meeting on Palestinian self-government, only to have Israel block the participation of Palestinian delegates in retaliation for another terror bombing. Washington made no serious public complaint. Last week Britain stuck to its guns by announcing that the summit would go ahead anyway — with the Palestinians taking part by phone.
Like other European leaders, Blair is passionately convinced that failure to tackle the Israeli-Palestinian dispute lends credence to the claim of fundamentalist Muslims that the war on terror and the war on Iraq are really a war against Islam. "Unless there is real energy put into crafting a process that can lead to lasting peace ... the future of the innocent is held hostage by the terrorists," Blair said last week, implicitly rebuking Bush's passivity. "They will recruit new volunteers as fast or faster as we imprison or destroy the old ones, unless we are helping those within the faith of Islam who are speaking out in favor of moderation, tolerance and sense."
Bush's other major policy slip in European eyes was to forge Iran, Iraq and North Korea into an "axis of evil." Whatever its moral justification, the phrase lumped together disparate opponents instead of trying to divide them, and in North Korea's case, created an embarrassing hostage to fortune. Bush's bedrock argument for attacking Saddam Hussein is that he is uniquely bad, due to his record of abusing human rights, using chemical weapons, aggression against his neighbors and long-term lust to acquire nukes.
Kim Jong Il may not have used chemical weapons, but he has starved and oppressed his own people, blown up South Korean officials, kidnapped Japanese teenagers to use as language teachers for spies, proliferated missiles and placed 10,000 artillery pieces within 20 km of Seoul. Oh yeah, and he's likely built his own nukes, is now seeking more, and last week renounced his treaty obligations not to build them and threatened that any sanctions against his country would be tantamount to "a declaration of war." Bush says diplomacy, not war, is the appropriate route with Pyongyang — in which case, many Europeans ask, why not with Baghdad too?
They think they know the answer: oil. According to the Pew poll, 76% of Russians, 75% of French, 54% of Germans and 44% of British believe the desire to control Iraq's oil lies behind Bush's bellicosity — another deep rift with the U.S., where only 22% hold this view. Americans, even those who oppose the war, are more likely to believe that Bush is trying to make the world a safer place. Europeans don't buy it. "Iraq hasn't invaded anyone, as it had Kuwait the last time," says Clemens Ronnefeldt, a leading member of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, an organization with roots in the U.S. peace churches. "It is cooperating with international inspectors. This war is about economic interests, oil interests." Ronnefeldt and others are planning civil disobedience actions to block U.S. military operations in Germany in the event of war, and they are helping organize demonstrations in all major European capitals on Feb. 15.
In Italy, Father Jean-Marie Benjamin, a French-born musician and priest now living in Assisi, is fighting an audiovisual battle against the Bush Administration. He has launched a second edition of his book Obiettivo Iraq (Target Iraq) after the first edition of 10,000 copies sold out in three months. The book, documenting the effects of the U.N. embargo and Benjamin's efforts to smuggle humanitarian aid into Iraq, also contains a video of his catchy pop single Mr. President, which is getting lots of play on Italian radio. "Hey! Mr President, we've understood it all," Father Benjamin warbles, "That we are slaves of Wall Street, lobbies and multinationals/ The taxes of the British people and of the good American people/ To exterminate a whole population/ To colonize Iraq and the Kurds!" You won't catch that one on mTV.
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