COVER STORY

A breaking alliance

JOHN CHERIAN

The Bush administration's rush to wage war on Iraq causes serious divisions in Europe, with many key members of the Western alliance positioning themselves in the anti-war camp.

CHARLES DHARAPAK/AP

U.S Secretary of State Colin Powell with NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson (left) in Washington.

THE Western political and military alliance, symbolised so long by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), has come under serious strain as the Bush administration ratchets up it war plans. The U.S. government's determination to wage war on Iraq has also split the European Union into pro- and anti-American camps. European public opinion is overwhelmingly against the American government, as illustrated by the anti-war demonstrations of unprecedented scale staged across the length and the breadth of the continent in the second week of February. In countries like Spain and Italy, whose governments have opportunistically chosen to support the Bush administration, opinion polls have shown that the people are against a new war.

The split in NATO came out in the open when the Bush administration sought to drag member-countries into the looming conflict, by demanding that the grouping send in troops and equipment to Turkey, the only NATO member sharing a border with Iraq. Until a month ago, senior Bush administration officials were boasting that the U.S., along with its ever-loyal ally Britain, could take on Iraq without the help of other allies. However, when it became evident that Iraq was going to put up a stiff resistance, Washington arm-twisted Turkey into agreeing to host American troops on its territory for military action.

The Bush administration also gave up talk of disarming Iraq unilaterally and called for a broad Western military coalition against Iraq, despite many NATO countries like France, Germany and Belgium taking a stand against the war. Washington's aim was to bring the Europeans round, by invoking the NATO mechanism of mutual assistance.

The American administration exerted tremendous pressure on the Turkish government to invoke the NATO Charter and ask for military help from member-countries. The government led by the conservative Justice and Development Party did so after some foot-dragging. According to a recent survey, 94 per cent of Turks are against a war against Iraq. The Turkish Parliament had voted in the first week of February, after a heated debate, to allow the U.S. to upgrade its military bases and ports in preparation for war.

A senior ruling party member, Goksal Kucukali, has threatened to revolt against his party if Turkey joins a war not of its choosing. He claimed that 30 other members of the ruling party were with him on the issue. The leader of the party, Recip Tayyib Erdogan, had asserted on the campaign trail late last year, that he was against a war on Iraq. Erdogan, under pressure from the U.S. as well as the Turkish military, has now backtracked, though he still claims that he has not given a "carte blanche" to the Americans to launch an invasion from his country.

The government's popularity has started plunging as the Turks have discovered that the new party they have elected is no different from its predecessors in power. Corruption charges have already engulfed top leaders of the ruling party. The Turkish military has intimate security links with Israel and the U.S. There are also indications that the Bush administration has promised the Turkish government a free hand to deal with the restive Kurds, both inside its territory and in Iraq. Around 5,000 Kurdish fighters owing allegiance to the imprisoned Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) leader, Abdullah Ocalan, are based in northern Iraq.

Ocalan has been held incommunicado for the last three months. Neither his lawyers nor close relatives have been allowed to meet him. This has heightened speculation that the Turkish military is planning an imminent crackdown on the Kurdish guerillas in a move to forestall the creation of an independent Kurdish state in Northern Iraq. Turkish and American troops are already in Kurd-dominated northern Iraq, which has been outside the control of Baghdad for more than a decade.

Turkish sensibilities have been further hurt by the assertion of the American special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, that Turkish soldiers deployed in Iraqi territory will be under American command. Erdogan had earlier said that the idea of Turkish troops being under foreign command was "humiliating and insulting". Another reason why the ruling party, led by former Islamists, capitulated was the financial incentives offered by the Americans. The Bush administration is said to have promised an aid package of $14 billion in return for Turkish military cooperation.

Belgium, France and Germany had in the second week of February, in an unprecedented move, vetoed the Turkish government's request for military equipment in case of war with Iraq. The Turkish request was prepared in coordination with the Bush administration. Paris, Berlin and Brussels had said that while they agreed in principle to assist Turkey, they also did not want to complicate the efforts under way to find a peaceful resolution to the Iraqi crisis. The trans-Atlantic rift was now wide open.

France and Germany reiterated their positions in the Security Council in the middle of February. In the third week of February, Belgium and Germany agreed to Turkey's request for military equipment while stressing that they were resolutely against war. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said that while solidarity with Turkey "is beyond question", it was "inappropriate to have a formal NATO decision on the start of planning for a war before the discussions in the Security Council". NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson emphasised that the decision was "purely for the defence of Turkey. This is not a step toward war".

Though the American Ambassador to NATO, Nicholas Burns, had characterised the developments as a "serious crisis", the French, the Belgians and the Germans chose to downplay the split. They said that if Turkey was really under threat their countries would be the first to rush to its defence.

MEHDI FEDOUACH/AFP

U.S. military vehicles at the Mediterranean port of Iskenderun.

Germany and France received strong diplomatic support from Russia. President Vladimir Putin visited Berlin and Paris to offer support to the Schroeder/Chirac plan of further increasing the numbers of U.N. arms inspectors in Iraq and of strengthening the airborne surveillance of the country. "I would like to emphasise that we, together with France, Germany, and the overwhelming majority of the world community, believe that the Iraqi problem could and should be solved by diplomatic means," Putin said in Paris after his meeting with President Jacques Chirac. Putin emphasised that both Moscow and Paris recognised the primacy of international law as well as the U.N.'s key role in solving important global issues. The three countries issued a joint declaration on Iraq in the middle of February.

The European Union (E.U.), until now a model for economic and political integration, has also been adversely impacted by the crisis. The Bush administration got eight E.U. members to sign a letter supporting American plans. It was done with the explicit design of snubbing France, Germany and Belgium. Greece, which currently holds the E.U. Presidency, is supportive of the Franco-German stance. The emergency E.U. summit on February 17 clearly brought out the divisions among the Europeans. However, importantly, despite the stated positions of the governments of Britain, Italy and Spain, E.U. leaders agreed that Iraq should be given more time to disarm and that a war with Iraq "was not inevitable".

The leaders assembled in Brussels agreed that force should only be used as a last resort. Chirac explicitly stated that if Washington insisted on introducing a second resolution in the Security Council calling for war, France would have no option but to veto that. Chirac was also scathing in his criticism of East European countries, which have queued up to become E.U. members. The Presidents of Poland and the Czech Republic had broken ranks and made statements critical of France and Germany.

The U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had tried to use this as a ploy to create a rift in the E.U., by asserting that New Europe was with the U.S. in its military game plan for the Gulf. The Germans and the French point out that the people of eight countries that supported the Bush administration are overwhelmingly against a war. It is crystal clear that the people of "Old Europe" and "New Europe" now have little appetite for American military adventurism.

In yet another diplomatic setback for the Bush administration, the Turkish Parliament, at the eleventh hour, postponed a vote to approve formally an increase in American troop deployments in the country. Prime Minister Abdullah Gul told the Turkish media that there was a danger of the legislators turning down the proposal, given the overwhelming popular sentiment against war. Senior government officials, however, hint that a bigger financial package for Turkey from the U.S. could help expedite the passage of the Bill. Erdogan warned Washington in the third week of February that it should not take Istanbul's support for granted.

The Bush administration's preparation for war has the potential to irrevocably damage the Western Alliance assiduously built up during the Cold War. The Europeans feel that the Bush administration, since it took office, has been advocating positions diametrically opposite to those favoured in European capitals, whether it be on the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty or the International Criminal Court. The Europeans hold the Bush administration responsible for escalating the crisis in the Korean peninsula and for triggering missile and nuclear build-up in different parts of the world.

The Bush administration has also chosen to ignore the statement by Iranian President Mohammad Khatami in the second week of February, in which he announced that Iran had discovered uranium ore in its territory and had decided to start its exploration in order to produce nuclear fuel. Theoretically, Iran can now use its own uranium to develop nuclear weapons. Khatami has, however, reiterated that Iran's nuclear programme is aimed exclusively at providing the country with electricity. Khatami's statement came at a time when the Bush administration was going out of its way to improve the relations with Iran in preparation for the war against Iraq.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail