Reality Check

Wednesday, Nov. 03, 2004 By J.F.O. MCALLISTER | LONDON
FOUR MORE YEARS: The prospect of a second term for Bush wiped the smiles off the faces of these Kerry supporters in Switzerland
LAURENT GILLIERON/AP
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An early crisis may also arise over Iran, which seems determined to enrich uranium to bomb quality. The options to restrain Tehran's atomic ambitions are limited. Iran's nuclear facilities, which it claims are for civilian energy purposes only but which the U.S. charges are part of a weapons program, are numerous, hardened against bombs and widely dispersed. Some are located in civilian areas, virtually guaranteeing heavy casualties from air strikes. U.S. forces are already bogged down in Iraq, where Tehran, through its extensive network of agents, could make life even harder for them if it wished. Bush has previously abjured the one diplomatic deal thought big enough to tempt Iran: a grand bargain to end U.S. sanctions and welcome it back to the international community. Given these tough choices, a former senior U.S. diplomat expects another major transatlantic rift: "I don't think the U.S. can stand Iran with nuclear weapons. Europe will say it can live with them."

Still, the fact that Bush faces this dilemma is not entirely unwelcome in Europe. Meyer notes that "the lesson Bush has had to learn in the last two years is not just the extent of American power, but the limits on it." Kaspi of the Sorbonne's North American History Center expects an awareness of limits to spawn pragmatism all round. European leaders have been preparing for Bush's re-election, are glad there will at least be no interregnum while a new Administration takes shape, and don't want to keep butting heads. For his part, "Bush may make restoring relations with Europe a key task of his second mandate, not because he has any great fondness for it or respect for its political reliability," Kaspi says. "But Europe has become such a big economic partner, I don't think he can afford to let things continue rotting." An even more optimistic prediction of closer ties comes from those who hark back to Ronald Reagan's second term, when another President disliked by Europe pivoted off his hard-line reputation to work seriously at leaving a legacy as peacemaker with the Soviet Union. Can Bush execute a similar about-face?

A few European countries, of course, bucked the trend and positively welcomed Bush's win. In Poland, a staunch U.S. ally in Iraq, Bush remains personally popular, and the country's leaders have found their close ties with his Administration a useful counterweight in dealing with "old Europe." Russian President Vladimir Putin voted early in the U.S. polls, saying last month that "international terrorism has set itself the goal of preventing Bush's election." Anatoly Utkin of the U.S.A. and Canada Institute in Moscow explains that Bush has gone easy on Putin as he has amassed more power, and that Republicans make more "comfortable" interlocutors than Democrats: "They don't ask what is happening in Chechnya or if freedom of expression in Russia is being limited." Moreover, if the war in Iraq drags on, Russia stands to benefit handsomely from dramatically higher oil prices.

Bush's re-election is a more mixed result for his best European friend, British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair's opponents in the general election expected next May lost their chance to invoke a Bush defeat as a precedent. But Blair stays lashed to an association that many in his country, especially his own party, have come to loathe. A poll of British M.P.s found that 73 out of 73 Labour members would have voted for Kerry (as well as 21 out of 21 Liberal Democrats and 20 out of 42 Conservatives). His unpopular agreement to move 850 British troops into the American zone in preparation for the assault on Fallujah means any casualties will be attributed to his relationship with Bush. Blair promised his party conference in September that he'd prod the White House on the Middle East peace process this month. Without an obvious quid pro quo from Bush, Blair will be emasculated in front of his own voters.

As European leaders maneuver to re-engage with Bush, foreign-policy experts are talking nervously about the election becoming a tipping point: the moment when, as Kaspi fears, Europeans conclude that America has "become an aggressive, nationalistic, ultrareligious place." The plates have been slowly shifting for a long time; a U.S. that spends on defense more than twice the outlay of the E.U.'s 25 members put together, that permits the death penalty in most states, where religious fundamentalism is growing and some 35% of households own a gun, has less in common than it used to with a Europe that bans the death penalty and has grown increasingly antiwar and secular.

But Europe woke up to an earthquake Wednesday: Americans have actually extended George W. Bush's contract. Those who want to promote the E.U. as an independent pole of world power may well exult in this development, for Bush surely makes a more convenient bad guy than the internationalist Kerry would have. But those who believe in a world in which Europe and America are reflexive partners and mutual good listeners may have some more sleepless nights in store.