Military

DATE=04/11/2003

TYPE=ON THE LINE

NUMBER=1-01310

TITLE=MENDING TRANSATLANTIC TIES

INTERNET=Yes

EDITOR=OFFICE OF POLICY 619-0038

CONTENT=

THEME: UP, HOLD UNDER AND FADE

Host: Mending transatlantic ties. Next, On the Line.

[music]

Host: President George W. Bush met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Northern Ireland to discuss the progress of the war for Iraq and to talk about plans for rebuilding the country after the war is over. Both leaders said that the coalition would welcome international cooperation in the effort and that the United Nations would have a vital role in post-war Iraq. It was the debate over enforcing the U-N's Iraq resolutions that opened rifts between the U-S and some European allies including France and Germany. Will future U-N efforts heal those strains or widen the gap? I'll ask my guests: Robert Hunter, former U-S ambassador to NATO and now a senior adviser at the RAND corporation; John O'Sullivan, editor in chief of United Press International; and joining us by telephone from Atlanta, Georgia, Stuart Eizenstat former ambassador to the European Union and former Deputy Treasury Secretary. Welcome and thanks for joining us today. Robert Hunter, is this discussion over the role of the United Nations going to be an opportunity for greater cooperation between transatlantic allies, or is this just going to be another opportunity for these rifts to grow wider?

Hunter: I think we're already in the post-Iraq war phase, and a lot of that is about how the United States and the European allies in particular work together, not just on reconstruction in Iraq, but on overall Middle East policy and an overall adjusting to the requirements of the 21st century. And in that, the U-N has become symbolically more important than substantively. I think the Europeans want to be sure that the United States is not just going to go after Iran next. They want to know that the United States is going to press for Israel-Palestine peacemaking and they want to know that the United States remains committed to roles for international institutions. On all these points, I think it's in the U-S interest to be as accommodating as possible within the limits of getting the job done in Iraq.

Host: John O'Sullivan, Prime Minister Blair said that the U-N should have a "vital role" -- the language he used. Dominique de Villepin, the French foreign minister, said, "The United Nations must play a central role" in administering Iraq. Is there a big difference between those two visions, and is it going to be an important difference?

O'Sullivan: There is a difference, obviously. And the difference is partly rhetorical. I mean, both Bush and Blair, the president and the prime minister, can agree on the U-N having a role that isn't a dominant political role, which leaves, at least in the short term, the major decisions open to the coalition partners. That's something which the French have not liked and indeed at an earlier stage, said they wouldn't even bless that with United Nations support, that they wanted to bring the whole thing under U-N control. I don't believe that's going to happen. I think that the assessment that we just heard from Ambassador Hunter is essentially correct and one has to say, however, that the French and to some extent the Germans and the Russians are treating multilateralism as a weapon against the United States. The British prime minister has got to be able to demonstrate to the Americans that multilateralism means what it says. That it's a form of international cooperation and not simply a matter of frustrating American policy at every turn.

Host: Stuart Eizenstat, are you there by phone? Yes, well let me ask you to respond to John O'Sullivan's point, which is, is multilateralism at this point primarily a way of reining in the U-S, or will it be a way of achieving cooperation?

Eizenstat: The French may look at that as a way of reining in the U-S, but I think we should look at it in a different way. We have several reasons why a multilateral approach at this stage is vital. The first is simply economic, that we can't shoulder and have our tax-payers shoulder the total burden of the reconstruction and peacekeeping that will be necessary for several years in a post-Saddam Iraq. And second, we shouldn't want to be the only visible party administering Iraq with fifty-thousand troops and the equivalent of the Douglas MacArthur of Iraq in Jay Garner. It's important that we show that this is a multilateral and multinational process of rebuilding and reconstruction.

O'Sullivan: It seems to me, by the way, that the Americans and the British have reached a rhetorical agreement on this by talking about the importance of making sure that it's the Iraqis who govern Iraq as quickly as possible. And that's the way out of giving the U-N too big a role or else claiming too big a role for the United States. I don't believe the Americans do want to rule Iraq indefinitely. In fact, I think they would like to find a decent exit strategy. But they've got to find, they've got to stay long enough and find a way out which doesn't hand over control to, in a sense, a squabbling heterogeneous committee in which the Russians, the French, the Germans, the Americans, the British are all backing different clients in Iraq through the U-N organization.

Hunter: Well, I don't think that's really the choice. I agree with Stuart Eizenstat entirely that the United States can't and won't foot the bill for everything that has to happen in Iraq or elsewhere. And frankly, there are a number of other countries who have more experience with things like peacekeeping as opposed to the peacemaking which has been largely entrusted to the United States, Britain, and a couple of other countries. And I think the Congress will rise up and say, "Why don't we have others?" And let's say, have a blessing from the United Nations on that. Now, one of the things I think we have to recognize is we're likely to be there a long time, whoever there is. It's not going to be a quick in and out and the more we can have other countries engaged in that the better. John O'Sullivan's point of the use the of internationalism, multilateralism as a weapon, well I think we need to disarm that weapon by showing we're out in front welcoming the participation of other countries. Not just because it's a good thing, but because, quite frankly, otherwise, we won't foot the bill.

O'Sullivan: But, I mean, is there any doubt about that? I don't think anyone seriously doubts that the Americans would like to have assistance in this. Nobody thinks the Americans want to stay there indefinitely. And also, everyone realizes, let's say that Jay Garner's job, it's inescapably going to devolve on the Americans for the first three, maybe even the first six months. Simply feeding the hungry, curing the sick, rebuilding the infrastructure, that's going to be done by the Americans. Now, the longer-term problem of political reconstruction and the longer-term problem of economic reconstruction, that, I agree, will be done by other people. But for the moment, surely, politically, you have to have a very clear line of authority rather than one that's muddled by constantly ringing up a committee at the U-N to determine what's going to be done.

Eizenstat: One of the first ways to achieve that is within the administration itself. It's quite clear that they still have not resolved their internal debate as to whether the Defense Department is going to manage this in a sort of quasi-military role or whether the State Department, using some of its former ambassadors and experts and A-I-D [Agency for International Development] will have a central role. And that in and of itself will send an important signal to both the Arab world and the Europeans about the nature of the administration going forward. And that battle is yet to be won, although the Defense [Department], certainly they seem to have the upper hand at this point. So there really are two divisions, one within the administration between State and Defense and the other between the U-S and our European allies, including, in this case, the British, who will be more on the European side because Blair needs to repair the damage that's been done to his own standing in Europe.

Hunter: The symbols really are very important here. We can always rehearse how we got into this war, but that's kind of useless. The one clear product is that there is a lot of bad blood on both sides of the Atlantic and it's going to require leadership on both sides of the Atlantic to get beyond that in our common interest. The interest between Americans and Europeans, not just in Europe, but frankly, doing things in the Middle East are very strong. But it's going to require a lot of leadership and the symbolism of saying, by the United States and by Britain, "We're now reaching out to others, drawing you in early on." I fear if we have an interminable debate about the role of the U-N, it's just going to make more bad blood rather than lead towards the kind of reconciliation that we have to have.

Host: Robert Hunter, let me ask you. If the U-S makes that kind of symbolic gesture, what will the U-S and Britain be looking for from European allies in return? What kind of gestures would you be looking for to see whether this is going to be an amicable process going forward?

Hunter: Well, I don't really look at it as a trade, because we ought to be really moving in the same direction. But part of the engagement of Europeans is with money, with people, some military, but particularly civilians. With people who understand what's on the ground with diplomacy elsewhere in the Middle East from which we all learn what we went through before so we can avoid having another train wreck, another set of crises, over [the] Arab-Israeli [conflict], over Syria, over Iran, over the future of the whole region. When really, I think, to understand collectively, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction threaten us all. Maybe the next time we should find a different way of getting together on it.

Host: John O'Sullivan, we've talked a lot about the U-N and what kind of role the U-N might have. But in terms of transatlantic ties, NATO has always been one of the strongest institutions. Is there going to be a role for NATO in either peacekeeping or in some way dealing with post-War Iraq?

O'Sullivan: I don't think there's going to be a major role for NATO in relation to Iraq. I think there might have been at an earlier stage in the crisis, but not at this point. But the wider transatlantic relationship, I think is extremely interesting. At the moment American conservatives and neo-conservatives have fallen in love with Tony Blair. I think they're about to fall out of love with him, because they are about to discover that he will want to restore good relations with France and Germany and will be prepared to make considerable concessions to do so in ways that they don't like. Where I think Mr. Blair is going to face trouble is, he does not, I think, realize the depth of bitterness that exists in France and Germany. In Germany, among the political elite, in some ways more than in France, oddly enough, about the fact that he played a major role in recruiting the East Europeans against the French and the Germans in the early run-up to the crisis.

Host: Stuart Eizenstat, let me ask you that question that John O'Sullivan raises, which is how significant is the current rift between old Europe, if you will, and the U-S?

Eizenstat: When Bob Hunter and I were in Brussels, we used to consider a real conflict and crisis between Europe and the U-S to be over beef and bananas. We only wish for those days, frankly. I think that the real crisis is here, that it is a very fundamental crisis about our respective differences in risk assessment, in the danger of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction and the use of multilateral and multinational instruments to deal with those risks and when to use military force. So I think they're profound differences. But I think that the most important thing that we can do now to heal this rift is on the economic as well as the political set. Let me just suggest the following: the way in which the United States in the first couple of weeks after the end of the war begins the procurement process will speak volumes about whether we open a rift even wider or close it. And the early sounds are not, I must say, positive. If it appears that what we're doing is awarding to U-S companies a whole raft of contracts to rebuild the infrastructure rather than having an open procurement process, rather than going through a consultative process in which we decide, for example, how to use the one and a half billion dollars in assets we've frozen; what role European companies can have in bidding on these contracts; what to do with the existing oil concessions to Russia and France. These are all very consequential decisions and if we rush to judgment and pay those contracts out prematurely to U-S companies, as much we all might like that for short-term job creation, it will cause long-term rifts and bitterness and only aggravate the divisions which already exist.

O'Sullivan: There's another aspect to this, which hasn't much been considered in the public debate so far. And that is the new government in Iraq, when it comes about, is probably going to want to have some sort of Nuremberg trial for the past thirty years of terror. And in many ways, that kind of thing is necessary for the health of a society, to get an honest and moral democracy established. But that's going to be very embarrassing for a lot of people, not simply the people in Iraq. It's going to be very embarrassing for the Russians. It's going to be very embarrassing for the French. It's not so embarrassing for the British or the Americans, who actually sold very few arms to the Iraqis over the last thirty years. But there will be some embarrassment even here. And that, I think, is going to be an obstacle to the kind of perfectly reasonable argument we just heard from Ambassador Eizenstat, namely, the people are going to say, well, you're giving contracts to the same kind of people who armed the dictatorship.

Hunter: Well, I have been impressed over the years with Stuart Eizenstat's perfectly reasonable arguments because I've tended always to agree with him and I've learned to follow his leadership on this kind of matter. But let me say, this is a moment in which the president needs to take another leaf out of the book of Winston Churchill that he likes to refer to, which is, "In victory, magnanimity." The Americans are still the leader of the Western Alliance, to the extent we have a Western Alliance, and when we're going to have one. And this means reaching out, not just to Tony Blair, who I think John O'Sullivan is exactly right, he's now going to be trying to repair his relations with Europe. His legacy is about what Britain does with Europe, not what it does in Iraq. And also, realizing the French did speak for an awful lot of Europeans in what it did before, prior to the war, reach out by the President of the United States, bring people together on this. I think he can do it and I think he needs to discipline people in the administration who are having these incredible squabbles in Washington which don't relate to the President's agenda, to his largeness of spirit and to his leadership in the 21st Century.

O'Sullivan: He also needs to dispel the idea that the administration is bent upon conquering Syria, Iran, and anyone else who stands in the way, which I don't believe for an instant is the case and no one in the administration supports. But there are people outside the administration. I think there's people outside the administration who have given credence to this rather than anyone within it.

Hunter: I hope you're right.

Host: Stuart Eizenstat, there was the issue that Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, brought up at some point -- this difference between old Europe, France and Germany, and new Europe, including Eastern European countries that were being rather more supportive of the U-S position, in mending transatlantic ties. Is there a rift between old Europe and new Europe and is that something that still has to be addressed?

Eizenstat: Yes, I think however maladroit the statement was, there was in Secretary Rumsfeld's basic message a very important point and that is, the new countries which are joining both NATO and will be joining the European Union in 2004 and the years thereafter, are countries of the former Communist bloc who feel that they owe their newfound democracy and independence to the United States and not to Western Europe and not to the European Union. They come in with much more pro-American views, a much greater consonance of views on risk assessment, the use of force and take U-S leadership on these kinds of issues than does the traditional European countries in the E-U whose memory goes back to World War Two and a more distant memory. So, I think as those countries come in both to NATO and into the E-U, we're going to find in fact more divisiveness and more difficulty in getting the kind of foreign and security policy that the E-U is aiming for and that those countries again are more likely to take a U-S lead than the more "traditional" countries, as Secretary Rumsfeld called them, of Europe.

Hunter: I think we however have to be very cautious here. After all, a lot of these countries in Central Europe that came America's way are just now marching up to ratification in the United States Senate of their joining NATO. They then have to face the completion of the process of joining the European Union and they're not going to alienate France and Germany in that process. And also frankly they have to live more with these countries in the future than they do even with us. And a further point, if you took the relative weight of all these countries, you've got Britain, France and Germany here, a great weight; you've got the Eastern European countries down here, very little weight indeed.

Host: Do you mean in terms of population?

Hunter: In terms of population, economic power, military power. If you're going to have a transatlantic alliance, it's based upon the United States, Britain, Germany and France plus whoever else you can bring along.

O'Sullivan: I think both men are right, but I think that this points to a very difficult situation because I think Ambassador Eizenstat is right that these people coming in, the new entrants, tilt things toward the Americans but the institutional structure of the E-U and the ability of the existing E-U countries to, in a sense, bribe, bully, impress the new entrants to go along with them. This creates circumstances where there could be a real problem within the E-U and thus between the E-U and the United States. I think we should take this opportunity, the president should take the opportunity he has in a sense to redraw -- he can redraw the map of the world at the moment almost. He should use, with Tony Blair, the constitutional convention that's taking place in Europe to get changes in the structure of Europe that would enable the French, the Germans, the Belgians, to press ahead with their more federalist schemes while allowing other countries that didn't share, didn't want that degree of integration to accept a lesser one. And I think that kind of two-tier, two-speed, multi-variable geometry Europe would be a better partner for the United States than one which is disputing whether it wants to become a single country or remain a Europe of nations.

Eizenstat: This is Stuart Eizenstat, I think that John has said it very well but I also agree with Bob that we can't appear to ignore the real weight in Europe which is still in effect the older Europe. It's still the Frances and Germanies that carry the weight. Germany is thirty percent of the gross domestic product. At the same time, we have to recognize that one of the real casualties of the Iraq conflict is the effort to build a common foreign and security policy, which was actually making some progress under Javier Solano. He's a world-class figure. Bob worked with him when he was Ambassador to NATO. And on issues like the Israel-Palestinian problem, the fact is that Europe and the E-U were beginning to act as a common force. They were beginning to create the Euro-corps, their own military component. And Iraq really fractured that as you had Italy and Spain joining the U-S and of course France and Germany on the other side and many of the other countries torn in between. And it will take a good deal of time not only to heal the rift between the U-S and Europe but also to try to put back together this common foreign and security policy which has hardly gotten off the ground.

Hunter: If we want to do anything useful in the world we need the Europeans, beyond just the raw use of military power, which we do very effectively. We can make war alone, but we cannot make peace except with others. It's in our interest to have a strong, cohesive, working-together Europe instead of trying to pick one against another. And we should start by not forcing Tony Blair to choose between us and the continent and forcing some kind of division between an old and new Europe which doesn't make any sense at all.

Host: We have about ten seconds left, John O'Sullivan?

O'Sullivan: I think the answer to that is not to try to force the two sides of Europe together, but to create a Europe in which differences are possible. And that Europe it seems to me, flexible, open, free-trading, is a much better partner for America.

Host: I'm afraid that's going to have to be the last word. We're out of time. I'd like to thank my guests: Robert Hunter, former U-S ambassador to NATO; John O'Sullivan of United Press International; and joining us by telephone: Stuart Eizenstat, former ambassador to the European Union. Before we go, I'd like to invite you to send us your questions or comments. You can e-mail them to Ontheline@ibb.gov

For On the Line, I'm Eric Felten.