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Iraq: The war that will break the
West?
By Francesco Sisci
BEIJING - It's an odd twist of fate. This
weekend US Secretary of State Colin Powell will come to
Beijing to confer with his Chinese counterparts about
the forthcoming war in Iraq and the troublesome
situation in North Korea. In China, until recently a
Cold War foe, he will find more support than in France,
its ally in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and
the country that two centuries ago helped America gain
its independence.
The Eurasian continental
balance has apparently shifted. Whereas western Eurasia
had been for more than half a century the cornerstone of
US strategy on the continent, with much shakier
relations in the eastern part, now the eastern part
seems more solid than the western one. Certainly this is
only temporary, as the deep ties binding Western Europe
to America can't be easily traded for the fragile bonds
between Washington and Beijing. But, as the Economist
said in "Old Europe's last gasp?" on February 13, "The
nature of the split [between the US and France +
Germany] threatens to undermine the postwar
trans-Atlantic alliance, the hopes of those who dream of
a common EU foreign policy and the prospect of a smooth
transition to the newly enlarged EU in just over a
year's time."
Simply put, as by influential
European commentator Lucio Caracciolo, European public
opinion doesn't back the war in Iraq. There are many the
reasons for this:
The September 11, 2001, attacks were kindled by the
Palestinian issue, and the war against terrorism
promised some months ago also to resolve the Palestinian
issue. This, especially after the recent Israeli
elections, which confirmed Ariel Sharon, renowned for
his tough stance on the Palestinian issue, will not
happen. In other words the war on Iraq will not help the
solution of the Palestinian cause. The Arabs then will
receive the stick but no carrot with the war, and sticks
without carrots rarely work. This could trigger further
destabilization in the Middle East.
The European Muslim domestic minority is important
because its dissatisfaction with Middle Eastern policies
could trigger protests and possibly radicalize Muslims
in Europe.
There is strong Catholic opposition to this war. The
Vatican has a strong constituency in Iraq, a country
hosting a large Christian minority loyal to the pope.
There is fear that a war in the Middle East that does
not provide a solution for the Palestinian solution
could antagonize the Muslims. The pope, who doesn't want
wars tainted with religion, thinks that the biggest
threat to Catholicism comes from atheism, not other
religions.
European public opinion believes that a war in Iraq
could further ignite terrorism in Europe, closer and
easier to attack, and conversely does not see at present
the danger of terrorist attacks the Americans feel. In a
way, Europe has lived with terrorism for decades and has
given up the pretense of total security, which is
opposite to the US notion of attempting to regain
through war the illusion of total security.
These sentiments give sufficient reasons to
hesitate regarding a war. In the face of all these
social costs, Europe might well be called to foot part
of the bill of the war and its present claims to some of
the Iraqi oilfields could be forfeited. The United
States has already claimed that contracts signed with
the present Iraqi regime will be reviewed after the war.
France and Germany could bargain with the US about these
costs but there is a much bigger geopolitical event
around the corner. Through this war the US will be able
finally to emasculate the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC), which the West will welcome,
although this might not be openly expressed. However,
this will give the US de facto strategic control of oil
in an unprecedented way. Before Middle Eastern countries
and Venezuela formed OPEC and challenged the West with a
price war in the early 1970s, oil supplies were jointly
controlled by the United States, the United Kingdom and
France. After the war, the US will in essence have total
control of oil security from Iraq, Kuwait and the whole
Arabian Peninsula. The UK and France will have no part
in it, as no European country will have any part in the
reshaping of the Middle Eastern political geography that
will follow the war.
On the positive side, the
war could boost the dollar and deflate the euro, thus
helping European exports and the sagging US stock market
and its investments. This would help expand the economy
on both sides of the Atlantic - provided there is a
quick and clear-cut victory. But many Europeans fear
that this will not be the case, in which case Pandora's
box will have been opened, something for which the US
seems ill-prepared. This could be especially true if the
war does not contemplate a viable solution for the
Palestinians.
These are good enough reasons for
caution and possibly for not starting the war. But what
the European public is failing to grasp is that war has
already started, and in fact it has been going on for
months. In this situation it would be in everybody's
best interests to solve it sooner rater than later. But
this is not happening, and consequently oil prices are
rising and anti-war demonstrations are growing.
It is a vicious circle that started because the
United States began the war in Iraq without declaring it
and now it is hard for Washington to say it. It was a US
stratagem to prepare the field for the final attack,
before officially declaring it, but now it has turned
against the US. This occurred because the US
underestimated the European opposition to war and the
Israelis' tough stance on the Palestinian issue.
The US predicament is more understandable in
China, where government and people have a national
passion for stratagems, and the rulers can see and
accept that the war has already started and it is only a
matter of winning or losing it. In Europe, conversely,
democratic public opinion would react even more bitterly
if the US were to declare the simple truth that the war
has already started and it is only a matter of winning
or losing it. It could look like a deception of naive
Europeans.
But the real question remains: Could
the administration of US President George W Bush
withdraw from the war? What would be the consequences of
letting Saddam Hussein continue ruling Iraq?
For
one thing, the global economy would stall for months, US
public opinion might swing even more strongly against
Europeans and oil prices could go sky-high as US market
sentiments plunge further.
So, war will
certainly be waged, but will this trans-Atlantic rift be
healed? And in what way? This rift could threaten the
security bond that held together the Western world for
more than 50 years and helped defeat the Soviet Union
and hold the whole of Eurasia together. The
trans-Atlantic alliance may well be the largest casualty
of the Iraqi war, something that we have not even
started to address.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co,
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
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