LOOKING FOR A VISION

 

Both America and Europe are searching for common ground again—and they may have found it in what some are calling the 'Greater Middle East'

 Artículo de William Drozdiak en Newsweek International

Feb. 23 issue - Is the transatlantic relationship dead? Amid the rubble of the Iraq war, it often seemed so. Yet that near-fatal fracture now seems to have given fresh purpose and cohesion to what is arguably the most successful partnership in world history.

Determined to repair their ruptured ties, Europe and the United States are looking to embrace an ambitious new vision—a common challenge big enough to reignite a sense of shared mission between them. The one they've chosen: nothing less than the wholesale modernization of the swath of territory from Morocco to Afghanistan that the allies have taken to calling the Greater Middle East. If all goes according to plan, senior U.S. and European officials say, the details of this sweeping effort will be unveiled at a "triple crown" of summits this June involving the United States and the European Union, the Group of Eight industrial democracies and the 26 current and new members of NATO. Whether all sides are prepared to make the sacrifices needed to transform this grand scheme into more than a talking point remains to be seen. But at this point, even talking counts as progress.

The allies' sudden interest in collaboration, after so many months of tension, reflects a new appreciation of their shared vulnerability. As it expands to 25 nations and 450 million citizens this May, the European Union wields global economic clout—yet also senses greater exposure to terrorism, failed states, weapons of mass destruction and Islamic extremism. At their latest meeting in December, EU leaders endorsed a joint security strategy that cited terrorist groups acquiring materials or weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East as "the most frightening scenario" threatening their countries.

For its part, Washington has come to recognize that American troops cannot carry the burden alone in Iraq and Afghanistan, let alone other hot spots in the Middle East. President George W. Bush faces a tough re-election campaign, with Democrats accusing him of squandering the sympathies of America's traditional allies—not to mention billions in taxpayer money. He's eager to prove them wrong by coaxing the Europeans to contribute troops to peacekeeping missions currently dominated by America, and to lend their diplomatic muscle to conflicts Washington has not been able to resolve on its own.

The ambition of the evolving transatlantic initiative is truly breathtaking. It seeks to overhaul dysfunctional political, economic, social and legal systems in a vast arc of countries, where half of the population is under 18 years of age and one in five people live on less than $2 a day. The scheme calls for an unprecedented collaboration between NATO and the European Union. Under the emerging division of labor, NATO would offer countries in the region new forms of military cooperation, including training for peacekeeping missions, border security and counterterrorism, as well as reforms to encourage civilian control of the military. The program would be similar to the Partnership for Peace launched in the post-Soviet era for Central and Eastern Europe, but would stop short of eventual NATO membership. The European Union, meanwhile, would expand its existing trade and development links along the Mediterranean periphery, with the goal of achieving NAFTA-like free-trade arrangements with this Greater Middle East by 2010.

Across Europe there is a newfound interest in cooperation. Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie declared after visiting Washington recently that France was prepared to play a "driving force in revitalizing NATO" for the first time since leaving its integrated military command nearly four decades ago. Paris has also clearly signaled its willingness to send troops to Iraq, once sovereignty passes to an Iraqi government and a U.N. administration in June. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, who has barely spoken to Bush since the war, plans to visit the White House later this month to discuss how Europe and America can jointly cultivate stability in the Middle East. At the recent Wehrkunde security conference in Munich, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer insisted that while events may have vindicated Germany's opposition to the war, the United States and Europe must unite to confront the common threat to their societies posed by "destructive jihadist terrorism with its totalitarian ideology."

The Bush administration, too, now seems to realize the virtues of having Europe and America pulling in the same direction. Even Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld—who famously sparred with Fischer over "old" and "new" Europe at last year's Wehrkunde conference and is openly reviled as the archetype of an arrogant unilateralist—emphasized at this year's gathering that the first priority was "to strengthen multilateral cooperation to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction."

The question in the coming weeks and months will be whether this is any more than rhetoric. Europe still insists on the primacy of solving the Palestinian problem and the need for the United States to pressure Israel into withdrawing from most, if not all, of the West Bank. Europeans also appear much more skittish about rushing the process of democracy in countries such as Egypt or Saudi Arabia, where authoritarian regimes considered friendly to Western interests might be ousted in any free election by radical Islamists. And even if French troops are eventually willing to go to Iraq, there is no sign that the Pentagon is eager to share decision-making authority with any new partners. Still, if Europe and the United States can come together and be only a fraction as successful as they were in combating the original threat of the cold war, the world will be a better place.

Drozdiak is director of the Transatlantic Center at the German Marshall Fund in Brussels.