UAE | General
Borut Grgic: Europe has not much to offer for stabilising Iraq
This week, Europe goes to New York. Too bad, it has nothing worthwhile to offer, not even a credible pledge that it will provide military units for stabilising Iraq.
- Published: 00:00 September 24, 2003
This week, Europe goes to New York. Too bad, it has nothing worthwhile to offer, not even a credible pledge that it will provide military units for stabilising Iraq. All the French and German bravado still amounts to no more than calculated rhetoric.
I have to say it's tempting to urge the Bush administration to give a green light to the infamous French proposal - an immediate transfer of power to a sovereign Iraqi authority - and watch Europe fall on its face.
Maybe Bush should pull American troops out and tell the Europeans to do the peacekeeping themselves. Certainly a case can be made in support of this. But Washington knows better than that.
Paper tiger
Europe is not ready, not serious enough, nor capable to assume such a role. The old continent remains the same paper-tiger it was prior to Iraq, and even before then. Nonetheless, it continues to produce some of the loudest and most obnoxious critiques of the Bush administration's efforts in Iraq.
This is rich, really.
Let's revert back a little and expose Europe for a change. There's certainly plenty to be said here. Despite the back-patting going on in Europe, about what a force Europe is and is becoming, on the international stage Europe remains a pygmy. Brussels mandarins and Europhiles can certainly talk about the European soft power, its advantages, and about the money Europe spends in nation building programmes. But what's the effect?
Despite all the money pumped into the Balkans, the region remains a time-bomb. Africans continue to queue-up at Europe's borders, while Palestinian dreams continue being stifled under the "well-guided" European nation building programme for Palestine.
Now, either Europe doesn't know how to spend its money, which is always a possibility, or it has nothing else but money to offer in terms of inducing change, so nobody takes it seriously. Either way, Europe is doing something wrong.
Or maybe, it's just playing the old game of hypocrisy. Europe continues pumping the horn about advantages of soft power in the face of boys like Kim Jung-il, Saddam Hussain, and Osama.
Surely Europe can't be that naive, and certainly, it can't think the rest of the world is naive enough not to see through the smoke screen. Europe is stressing soft power because it hopes to be exempt from doing the hard work (i.e. developing an army which will send European sons and daughters in harms way). Why do it when the "less sophisticated" cowboys from Washington will take care of it?
Opportunistic strategising and cold calculations to absolve one of responsibilities is not moral, nor grand. It's a ticket to irrelevancy, yet one which continues to wield popular support on the old continent.
Iraq will be made functional - eventually. America has too much to lose if Iraq fails; as does Europe. The only difference is, America realises it, while Europe pretends not to understand that by getting rid of Saddam, Bush did everyone a favour.
Washington has provided both money and its sons and daughters to remove the first obstacle in getting Iraq on track towards becoming a stable and predictable democracy.
At this point, whether Iraq becomes a functioning state is as much Europe's problem and responsibility as is America's, but it's mostly up to the Iraqis. Why is it that America should pay for it all? It shouldn't. Iraq is rich and capable, and Europe can help.
If Europe truly was the global voice of fairness and morality, come Tuesday, it would open the checkbook, and send its forces to help offset the burden currently shouldered almost exclusively by the American and British forces.
But don't bet on it. This would mean absorbing responsibility. Why do it when there's someone else who will do it for you? Though it is unimaginable that Europe could ever absolve itself from partaking in the spoils.
Weakness
To say the obvious, this is not the game we need to play, or should play. Rather, come New York, Europe should acknowledge its continued military weakness and inability to play a serious peacemaker, accept that it is still a second-rate power, and step alongside Americans to help Iraqis help themselves.
For the future, Europe must develop a serious military component if it wants to stand equal to the US and play up to its potential on the international scene. Building better military capabilities is not irrelevant, but absolutely relevant. Any thinking to the contrary is not serious.
Pretending that diplomacy - call it pre-emptive, proactive, or whatever - will do, is wishful thinking.
The writer is a political analyst and a consultant to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia.
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