Bush had dinner and talks not with Tony Blair, or Silvio Berlusconi, but with Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder, whom Washington rightly holds guilty for stripping its invasion of Iraq of the UN backing that would have lent it some legitimacy in the eyes of many. but for all the buzz of excitement the visit has created in a Europe eager to let bygones be bygones, there is little hope of this revival of American diplomacy healing the ongoing transatlantic rift.
That a string of high-ranking American officials would make their way to Europe would have been virtually unthinkable two years ago. Neither would charm, courtesy and cheerfulness have been the adjectives one would have readily used to characterise the American state secretary, defence secretary or president. But in Europe the hawks were all dovish smiles, from Condoleezza Rice and Bush to Donald Rumsfeld. But much has happened since Rumsfeld sneered at Old Europe, or the founding countries of the European Union, for not falling in line behind the US-led invasion of Iraq. neo-conservative administration promised the world turned out to be absurdly long, arduous, costly and brutal. The "liberated" Iraqis did not greet their American "liberators" with roses as Richard Perle, a fellow hawk, had prophesied. Neither was imposing control over the conquered country a "cakewalk". And the threat of weapons of mass destruction was spectacularly exposed as a figment of the US administration's fertile imagination. In short, all Washington's calculations were found to be scandalously false, all its predictions unfounded. The "liberators" were not even given a chance to celebrate their victory over Saddam's wretched ragtag army. Daily mass demonstrations were soon followed by daily attacks that penetrated even the walls of the Green Zone fortress behind which American officials and their Iraqi sidekicks sheltered. Rather than the promised sweet smell of freedom, Iraqi cities reeked with the stench of death. Iraq was now a euphemism for anarchy, chaos, insecurity and carnage. America was mired in its biggest guerrilla war since Vietnam. As the US death toll mounted (topping 1500 according to US defence figures, albeit a mere footnote in comparison with the tens of thousands slaughtered Iraqis), so did the cost of maintaining the occupation (a staggering $156 billion). Struggling in the Iraqi quagmire, the US had no alternative but to turn to the United Nations and Europe for assistance, having denounced the one as "irrelevant" and the other as "old". Bush's return to Old Europe reflects in essence the limits of military power no matter how potent it may be. For all their grandeur and might, superpowers cannot dispense with allies and partners. The burden of the world is much too heavy to be borne by the American giant alone Bush's return to Old Europe's chilly embrace is not the result of a pang of conscience. It is a question of necessity not choice. But if the depth of its crisis in Iraq was the chief factor in dragging the neo-conservative team back to the international bodies it had turned its back on, it certainly was not the only one. Amidst growing resistance to US global dominance either on the part of the Chinese, who are steadily moving towards the accumulation and assertion of their economic and military power, or that of the Russians who recently announced the development of a new generation of strategic weapons, along with the gradual exhaustion of the overstretched American military force scattered in bases across an increasingly chaotic world, the US found itself unable to maintain its isolationist unilateralism and compelled to renew forsaken alliances. This must not, however, be taken as a sign that Washington's hawks have abandoned the fundamentals of their foreign agenda. Indeed, little appears to have changed about Bush's message except its tone. All he and his rightwing team have said since their visit to Europe indicates that they have not relinquished their commitment to a unipolar world order where the US enjoys unrivalled full-spectrum dominance unhampered by international laws and obligations. For the achievement of this end, the US had found it necessary to place itself outside the regime of international law through declaring the use of pre-emptive strikes as the basis of its 2002 National Security Strategy, thereby repudiating the system of absolute state sovereignty that governed international relations since 1648. Unipolarism remains the axis of US foreign strategy. The difference today is one of means not ends. Military power is now corroborated with the instrument of diplomacy. This is confirmed by the appointment of John Bolton as the US ambassador to the UN and nomination of Paul Wolfowitz as president of the World Bank, both staunch opponents of international institutions and fierce champions of American unilateralism. Bush's keynote speech of his European tour reflected the same obsession with the Middle East region, the cornerstone of the expansionist US foreign strategy. As he put it, "The future of our nations and the future of the Middle East are linked." This neo-imperialism is now pursued under the banner of emancipating the region from the iron grip of its despotic states, which, according to Bush, necessarily fall under one of two categories: "failed" or "rogue". The Europeans, better acquainted with the labyrinthine socio-political landscape of the region, thanks to their not-so-distant colonial past, are, however, not too enthusiastic about Bush's unbridled rhetoric of "spreading the untamed fire of freedom" to the region. If ignited, they fear, the flame of freedom might consume more than the despised Arab regimes. Despotic, outmoded, decadent and sclerotic as they are, these regimes dispose of an essential virtue: their proven talent for maintaining "stability", a euphemism for safeguarding foreign interests at the expense of their own populace. In the Middle East, democracy spells danger. Beneath the appearance of reconciliation and unity, the US and the old continent are set apart by a cluster of differences that stem from two irreconcilable visions of the shape and structure of the world order. The US does not see Europe as it would want to be seen, a partner in a multi-polar world, but as a useful bolster for its position in a unipolar world. Europe, with the exception of Britain still torn between the two continents, is actively seeking to strengthen its political and economic capabilities, which serves as a source of anxiety for the US in its quest for global hegemony. As David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, put it, for the US, a united, internationally active Europe "raises important strategic questions". In the eve of Bush's visit to Europe, Schroeder declared to a Munich defence conference that Nato was no longer the main forum for transatlantic discourse. Insisting that the organisation undermines Europe's status as a partner to the US, he added: "The same applies to the dialogue between the European Union and the US, which in its current form does justice neither to the union's growing importance, nor to the new demands of transatlantic cooperation." A few days after Bush's conciliatory visit, the US Congress issued a blunt warning to the EU over its plans to lift its arms embargo on China imposed in 1989 after Tiananmen Square, with Richard Lugar, head of the Senate foreign relations committee, threatening to stop military technology sales to the EU. China's military spending, it must remembered, is increasing by double digits every year, to the extent that analysts predict that within 10 years it would overhaul Russia as the second-largest military power after the US. But Europe's involvement in China is a cause of concern to the US on an economic level too. Central banks, led by the People's Bank of China, are in fact financing about 75-85% of the US current account deficit (a gigantic $164.7bn), which is causing the Central Bank of China to suffer rising economic losses in view of the continuing devaluation of the dollar (a capital loss equivalent to 10% of Chinese GDP). In the climate of Chinese-European rapprochement, the US rightly fears that China may decide to move into the strong Euro as an alternative reserve currency, particularly since Europe is already a bigger market for Chinese goods than the US. This would spell trouble to the US, as an increasing number of central banks across the world are shifting from the dollar to the European single currency, making it harder for the US to finance its massive current account deficit. Even where the two appear to speak in harmony, as on the question of Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon, they remain committed to divergent agendas and strategies. To the Americans, wresting Lebanon from Syria is essential for the removal of Hizb Allah's political cover (which France has objected to including in the European list of terrorist organisations) as a prelude to its planned attack on the Iranian regime.
To the French, however, reclaiming Lebanon is part of France's ongoing struggle to regain its influence in its old colonies. Lebanon would be the foothold France needs to restore its declining Francophone project in the Middle East in the face of a rampant Anglo-SaxonismFar from obediently trailing the American giant, the world appears to be pressing in the opposite direction. The world order, as we knew it for over a decade, seems to be disintegrating into a multitude of powers, each striving to bolster its economic and political mechanisms, strengthen its military capabilities, and assert itself in the face of an avaricious American hyper power. What final shape this process of polarisation would assume we cannot foretell. What we do know, however, is that our world is moving towards greater resistance to American global hegemony, greater instability and greater chaos.
Soumayya Ghannoushi is a researcher in the history of ideas at the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London.
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