[IP] News Analysis: A chance for Bush to up ante on war in Iraq IHT
DO NOTE : "the United States can now once again ask what sacrifices
in the area of cash and civil liberties can be made by its " DJF
News Analysis: A chance for Bush to up ante on war in Iraq
By John Vinocur International Herald Tribune
FRIDAY, JULY 8, 2005
The last time Europe and America were tested by the horror of Islamic
terrorism, their response varied from doing nothing to a confounding
decision by the newly elected Socialist government of Spain to pull
its forces out of Iraq.
Whether it was sitting tight or performing exactly as the authors of
the murderous train bombings in Madrid in March 2004 might have
hoped, the community of civilized nations basically turned away from
upping the ante.
This time, with the London bombings deliberately juxtaposed by the
terrorists against the Group of 8 meeting in Scotland and its group
picture of democratic leaders standing in supposed solidarity behind
Prime Minister Tony Blair, the shame of leaving things at more
reprobation and verbal response might be seen by many as insufferable.
The circumstances brutally pair the possibility of action with the
chance that the traditional reflex of such international meetings
dominates, and the participants issue a forgettable communiqué and go
home.
But the choice this time will not only write in red just how much
resolve there is in places like France and Germany to deal with
terrorism through deeper, riskier engagement. It will also make clear
how much the United States and Britain are willing to intensify their
fight in Iraq.
The issue is Iraq - because antiterrorist operational cooperation
works seemingly well among the Western players, including Russia. If
German and Dutch courts have repeatedly and despairingly allowed
suspected terrorists to go free, the G-8 partners regularly (and
honestly enough) repeat how remarkably they function together.
Iraq and the United States sit at the heart of the matter because the
Bush administration's policy of spreading democracy globally and
reshaping the Middle East is the vessel of change that the Islamists
so hate.
If President George W. Bush sought to demonstrate immediately that
terrorism could not prevail - a certain line in any summit communiqué
- his most convincing response to the London bombings might well be
an announcement that the United States would dramatically increase
its troop strength in Iraq, where terrorism, with vast margins of
impunity, exercises its barbarity daily.
A former Bush White House security-policy officialsaid there would be
no way to mobilize a stronger European involvement on any aspect of
the terrorist threat "if we're fuzzy and appear to be doing Iraq on
the cheap."
He said of the United States: "It had better hurry up in sending more
troops to Iraq, explain the strategy not in terms of a 'war on
terror' but as war on terrorists, and describe it as a generational
effort which now demands sacrifices beyond an all-volunteer force of
lower middle-class people sent off to fight.
"Like it or not, Europe keys off the U.S. on strategic thinking. The
tendency will be for some to think of the United States as a
dangerous friend. But our common enemies are more dangerous."
In the current situation, if Bush is ready to reinforce the American
role fighting terrorism on the ground in Iraq, the United States can
now once again ask what sacrifices in the area of cash and civil
liberties can be made by its G-8 counterparts.
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany, facing defeat by the
conservatives in elections in September, and stuck with an
increasingly left-oriented campaign platform, cannot be expected to
offer anything like a surprise turnabout going beyond his country's
present willingness to help train Iraq's security forces outside
Iraqi territory.
But Jacques Chirac, his popularity decimated at home, and faced with
two possible years of humiliation as a lame-duck president before
elections in 2007, could find the situation one in which a strong
gesture of antiterrorist solidarity might help right his situation,
turning an international vision of France from a self-involved nation
in decline to one re-defining itself as a global player.
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