The New York Times

February 20, 2005

Continent Is Divided, Though Views Soften

By ELAINE SCIOLINO

NAPLES, Italy - In an unadorned classroom at the NATO military base here, 18 European and 3 American officers came together recently for an intense orientation on how to train the Iraqi Army's new officer corps.

Many in the room came from "new" European countries - Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Slovakia, Estonia - and were clearly grateful to take part. "You can't be a NATO member and just sit back and do nothing," said Maj. Rudolf Jeeser of Estonia, who, like his fellow officers, volunteered for duty in Iraq. "For me, it's important to pay back NATO for what it has done for my country."

Notably absent were officers from America's major and longstanding European allies - France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Greece - countries that still contend that the American-led war in Iraq is wrong and refuse to send a single soldier there.

This is the Europe that President Bush will find when he lands in Brussels on Sunday, Feb. 20: a continent still deeply divided over how much to bend to the will of Washington on issues of war and peace, and how warmly to support the Bush crusade to spread its definition of freedom around the world.

The success of elections in Iraq and recent visits by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have helped soften European opinion. But in interviews across the Continent, officials warn that the antagonism generated in Mr. Bush's first term will not be healed in a day.

A partnership will be created when compromise can be reached issue by issue, particularly in areas important to Europeans.

"The right tone between the United States and Europe has been restored, a tone of normalcy that replaces one of distrust," said Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief. "Now we have to hope that the new tone is going to lead to a change in substance, to lead to concrete agreement. Obviously we are not going to solve all the problems with one meeting. But we are hopeful that the new tone is going to lead to a change in substance, to lead to concrete agreement."

The European public is hungry to believe the Americans when they say that a new era of friendship with Europe has begun, but also deeply suspicious that the soaring language will never translate into action.

A poll published this month by the German Marshall Fund, for example, indicates that only 11 percent of French and Germans approve of Mr. Bush's handling of foreign affairs. Europe remains frustrated that the United States has refused to hear its voice on issues as wide-ranging as the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, the standing of the world criminal court, engagement with Iran and structural change in the United Nations Security Council.

Other, more philosophical, differences persist as well. The Europeans tend to regard poverty and the dismal failure to bring peace to the Middle East as the root cause of terrorism; the United States tends to blame the absence of democracy. In discussing national security, the Europeans emphasize the word "stability," the Americans the word "liberty," even if it borders on what the Europeans might consider adventurism. Washington's strident statements about liberating Iran, for example, have spread concern across the Continent that America may try to use military force there.

The European Union is poised to lift its 15-year arms embargo on China this summer; the Bush administration opposes such a move. Washington wants the union to declare Hezbollah, the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group, a terrorist organization; many European governments, including that of France, note that it is also a recognized political party in Lebanon.

While some officials and analysts of the trans-Atlantic alliance were dazzled by the charm-infused, fence-mending performances by Ms. Rice and Mr. Rumsfeld on their trips to Europe, others remain unimpressed.

Mr. Rumsfeld's speech in Munich was aimed at bridging gaps. But he ended by saying that the United States would continue to intervene militarily without NATO when necessary. That language did not convince even the Americans present that a new day in relations had dawned.

"The tone was different," former Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen said at the conference. "The tune was the same."

When one participant suggested that Ms. Rice took a more consultative approach to Europe about the use of force than Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Rumsfeld snapped back: "Condi Rice doesn't have a policy. The president of the United States and the United States have policies."

To Europeans, the latest example of Washington's failure to recognize their diplomatic preferences is its stance on Iran. The European Union will press Mr. Bush to support the European initiative with Iran that envisions rewards if Iran gives up important nuclear activities, an approach the United States rejects.

Mr. Bush is determined to win more European support for the reconstruction of Iraq, and NATO is expected to announce that all 26 members are contributing at least something.

In its most recent sign of an expanding role, the European Union will announce on the first full day of Mr. Bush's visit plans to open an office in Baghdad for a program to train 770 Iraqi judges, prosecutors and criminal investigators outside Iraq, European Union officials said.

But while countries like Germany and France are willing to do training outside Iraq, the mission is short of soldiers in the country. And even more important is getting enough money to pay for the training.

"We're in bad shape money-wise," said Adm. Michael G. Mullen, NATO's southern European commander who runs NATO operations in Iraq, the Balkans and the Mediterranean. "We've got to figure out a way to get the resources to do the training for the Iraqi military."

Since then, a senior NATO official said, the United States has been pressing its members for donations, and hopes to announce at the summit meeting that the fund-raising campaign has worked.

For the Europeans, the most important gesture of Mr. Bush's trip is that he will be the first president to hold a summit meeting with the European Commission, the executive body of the 25-country European Union. The visit reflects an acknowledgment that "Europe" is real, and increasingly a power center to be reckoned with.

After all, the European Union - to which, unlike NATO, the United States does not belong - is the world's largest and most powerful economic bloc, and its population of 458 million far exceeds that of the United States. Europe is proud that an enlarged union with a stronger single currency, the euro, is forging a new Continentwide identity, and it has a conviction that it is becoming a power center in its own right.

Mr. Solana speaks often about the European Union's capacity to transform societies by promising aid and even membership. He predicts that one day the European Union will be as powerful a force in foreign policy as it is in trade.

But the Europeans have not committed the resources necessary for the military muscle that would back up a distinctive foreign policy. Absent, too, is a strong and consistent vision of how to wield Europe's accruing power in the world.

As if to test Mr. Bush before his arrival, and without consulting his fellow Europeans, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany this month called the 56-year-old NATO alliance "no longer the primary venue where trans-Atlantic partners discuss and coordinate strategies."

But it is President Jacques Chirac of France who most irritates Mr. Bush and his administration, and most often goes his own way.

Although France has played a leading role in NATO operations in many areas, particularly Afghanistan and the Balkans, France has staunchly opposed sending military personnel to Iraq. Its proposal to train 1,500 Iraqi police officers envisions a program outside Iraq and outside the NATO framework.

When several American senators went to Élysée Palace early this month, Mr. Chirac said that the arms embargo was an insult to China, two participants said. He turned the tables and blamed the United States for overarming Taiwan.

"You have to understand in these cultures that pride makes a difference," one participant paraphrased Mr. Chirac as saying. "This is true whether it is China or Iran or an Arab country."

Perhaps the same could be said for Europe.


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