BRUSSELS, 23 October 2003 — When three European foreign ministers take a day trip to Tehran, as they did the other day, and leave with an Iranian commitment not to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civil nuclear power program, where is the diplomatic breakthrough? Is it, as the foreign ministers exulted, in Iran’s belated compliance with international demands? Or could the real breakthrough lie elsewhere? If Iran’s assurances turn out to be worth less than the paper they are (not yet) written on, then the more enduring achievement will surely reside in the ability of three major European countries to coordinate their foreign policy in an especially volatile part of the world.
If this is so, then what we are looking at is nothing less than the tentative beginnings of a single European foreign and security policy. The CFSP, as it is bureaucratically known, has been derided and dismissed for so long that even the most ardent believers among us occasionally lose faith. The war with Iraq, which aligned Britain — and less actively, Spain and Italy — with the United States and against other European governments, represented a huge setback for a common European approach to foreign policy. At its most superficial, Britain’s participation in the Tehran expedition is London’s way of saying that it has foreign policy interests that coincide with those of France and Germany and it still wants to be part of the European club.
The difficulty for Britain, especially after Iraq, is how to rebuild bridges with Europe, while not burning the ones that connect London and Washington. Suspicion of Europe’s long-term intentions runs deep in Washington and the more Europe shows itself able to think and act in concert, the more outspoken Washington becomes in voicing its concern. The European Union’s defense and security plans were the subject of an emergency meeting — no less — called by the US ambassador at NATO headquarters on Monday. The same topic dominated Tuesday’s regular NATO meeting. Europe’s defense coordination, such as it is, remains embryonic. There is no European Union consensus on how autonomous any separate European defense capability should be. There is not even agreement about whether there should be a permanent European planning headquarters. So why is Washington so jittery? Part of the answer is Washington’s long-standing ambivalence toward Europe and the European Union in particular. And nowhere is US ambivalence more infuriatingly illogical than in defense and military matters.
Washington’s fresh panic attack about the fate of the trans-Atlantic alliance tells us two things. First: The relationship is not nearly as unequal as the Americans like us to believe. We Europeans are in a stronger bargaining position than we seem to realize; why else would the Americans be so worried? Second: Geography, politics and — increasingly — culture all dictate that the US and Europe will eventually go their separate ways; the military alliance may be the last link to disappear, but disappear it will. Britain chose to fight alongside the US in Iraq; it is now making peace alongside the Europeans in Iran. It is high time to decide on which side of the Atlantic we belong.
