ANÁLISIS DE LOS RESULTADOS

The Cheney speech set off a flurry of reactions in Europe, as each ally now had to decide how to deal with what it perceived to be the new reality in Washington. In Germany, where the headline of the mass cir- culation paper Bild Zeitung screamed “Krieg!”—War!—after the Cheney speech, Chancellor Schröder had already decided to use oppo- sition to war in Iraq as an electoral issue and to come out against German participation in a potential conflict. The Cheney speech played right into his hands. Stepping up the pace and tone of his antiwar state- ments, the unpopular Schröder saw his poll numbers increase. At cam- paign rallies, he discovered that his only effective applause line was when he denounced the idea of war on Iraq. On August 30, Schröder announced that Germany would withdraw its biological and chemical detection equipment from Kuwait if the Americans attacked Iraq. Earlier in the year he had told a German journalist that he knew that any German chancellor who withdrew such equipment would “not be welcome in the United States in the next 20 or 30 years.” But now, with his political back against the wall, he was proposing to do just that.

A few days later, asked by the New York Timeswhether he thought Cheney was speaking for President Bush, Schröder responded that he was “not qualified to say.” He did say that “the problem” was “that [Bush] has or seems to have committed himself so strongly that it is hard to imagine how he can climb down.” Moreover, the chancellor continued, “it is just not good enough if I learn from the American press about a speech which clearly states: We are going to do it, no mat- ter what the world or our allies think. That is no way to treat others.”

But it was not only the American style that bothered the German chancellor; he had strong problems with the substance as well. Arguing that an attack on Iraq could disrupt the international coalition against terror and bring uncertainty to the entire Middle East, Schröder used the same interview to announce a change in his stated policy of back-

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ing the possible use of force in Iraq only under a UN Security Council mandate. Instead, he asserted, the arguments “against an intervention are so important that I would also be against such an intervention if— for whatever reasons and in whatever form—the Security Council of the United Nations were to say ‘Yes,’ which I cannot imagine happening in the present situation.” On September 12, while Bush was at the UN seeking support on Iraq, Schröder was asserting on the campaign trail that “we need more peace, not more war. And that’s why under my leadership Germany will not participate.”

Schröder’s opposition to the war and refusal to allow any German participation in it, a key part of his electoral campaign, persisted right up until the September 22 election itself. That opposition, moreover, arguably contributed to the narrow victory of his Social Democrat–led coalition (with the Green party), 306 seats to 295, over the potential bloc led by the Christian Democratic Union. Two days before the election, Schröder’s justice minister, Herta Däubler-Gmelin, took the criticism of the United States and its policies one step further by accusing Bush of using the possible war to “divert attention from his domestic problems.” The minister went on: “It’s a classic tactic. It’s one that Hitler also used.” The comparison of Bush to Hitler set off a furious reaction in Washington, where White House spokesman Ari Fleischer called it “outrageous” and Condoleezza Rice said it had “poisoned” Germany’s relationship with the United States. Schröder immediately wrote to Bush to distance himself from the remark and to hint that Däubler- Gmelin would not be reappointed to a cabinet post (which she was not). But the letter seemed to the White House to be more a denial than an apology:

I would hereby like to let you know how very much I regret that, through the alleged remarks of the German Justice Minister, an impression was left that deeply wounded your feel- ings. The Minister has assured me that she did not make these

alleged statements. She has also stated this publicly. I would like to assure you that there is no place at my cabinet table for any- one who connects the American President with a criminal. The White House spokesman has correctly noted the special and close relationship between the German and American people. To the extent that this was a disavowal, it was not nearly enough for the White House, which had expected a clear apology from Schröder and the immediate dismissal of Däubler-Gmelin. Bush felt that Schröder had not only tolerated the atmosphere that made the justice minister’s comments possible, but had even encouraged it. White House officials called his letter to the President insulting: “Schröder effectively said he was sorry that Bush chose to get angry about com- ments that Däubler-Gmelin didn’t really make.”

The spat over the Hitler remark was a symbol of a much larger problem in German-American relations. Indeed, it was telling that rela- tions between the two countries had deteriorated to the point where the leader of traditionally Atlanticist Germany would see an advantage in running an election campaign against the United States. In response to American criticism of Schröder’s unilateral decision to oppose the war, Germans argued that Schröder was simply putting Bush’s method of decision making right back at him: Listen to what your ally has to say, but then act in your own interest regardless of what the ally thinks. The Bush administration, however, took the view that the United States was endowed by its history and its power with privileges and respon- sibilities very different from those of Germany.

Bush, in fact, would not forgive Schröder for campaigning against the war and the United States. According to senior administration offi- cials, Schröder had told Bush after a long and friendly dinner in January 2002 that he “understood” that Bush might have to go to war in Iraq, and he advised Bush only to do so quickly and decisively. Again in Berlin in May 2002, U.S. officials say, Schröder pledged not to run his

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election campaign against a possible U.S. war in Iraq. When Schröder ended up doing so, Bush—who aides say “believes the character of a person is known by whether he keeps his word”—felt betrayed and did not hesitate in private conversations to call Schröder a “liar.” Bush refused to congratulate Schröder on his election victory, and later, throughout the entire Iraq crisis, spoke to him only once on the phone, in an awkward, strained conversation.

A few days after the election Rumsfeld joined Rice in calling U.S.- German relations “poisoned” and allegedly snubbed his German coun- terpart Peter Struck at a NATO ministerial meeting in Warsaw—calling him “that person” and leaving the meeting just before the German was to speak. Rumsfeld denied any snub, but did comment afterward that his advice to Germany would be: “If you’re in a hole, stop digging.” Months later, in May 2003, Rice was still arguing that the relationship between Mr. Bush and Mr. Schröder “will never again be as it was and as it should be.” Washington was making efforts to improve relations with Germany, but “we are doing it around the Chancellor, whom we prefer to bypass.” Rice also commented that Bush felt that German Foreign Minister Fischer’s “background and career do not suit the pro- file of the statesman.”

The feelings of betrayal were mutual. Schröder denied having mis- led Bush in May 2002, and he had no intention of apologizing for his antiwar stance. With Schröder at his side during his May 2002 Berlin visit, Bush had pledged publicly and privately that he “had no war plans on his desk” and that he would consult Germany on the decision to go to war. In retrospect, Schröder felt he was not in fact consulted, and Germans believed that Bush misled them about his true intentions.

After the Cheney speech, the French also took stock of where U.S. policy seemed to be headed. Long among the most strongly opposed to regime change in Iraq, the French had spent the previous spring and summer focusing on the issue of renewing the containment of Iraq by revising the economic sanctions regime. The apparent message from

Washington that Bush was moving toward the use of force, however, obliged the French to decide what they would do if Bush carried out his threat. Chirac was still opposed to war, but he also realized that cat- egorical opposition similar to Germany’s would only lead the United States to act without even making an attempt to revive the UN weapons inspections process—thus marginalizing the UN Security Council, France’s preferred international forum. To prevent this scenario, Paris decided in late August to pursue a new course that allowed for the threat of force in the name of ensuring Iraqi compliance.

On August 27, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin marked a change in the tone if not the substance of French policy in a speech to a gathering of all of France’s ambassadors in Paris. De Villepin stressed the importance of nonproliferation and denounced an Iraqi regime that “for years has defied the international rules defined by the UN Security Council, holds its people hostage, and threatens security, espe- cially that of its neighbors.” He went on: “We Europeans know all too well the price of weakness in dealing with dictators to close our eyes and remain passive. We must thus maintain as firmly as possible our demand of an unconditional return of UN inspectors.” The statement was not exactly a threat of force against Iraq, and de Villepin stressed that “the steps to be taken must be decided by the international com- munity, according to a collective process.” This meant that “no military action could be conducted without a decision of the Security Council.” Still, de Villepin’s speech called Saddam’s defiance “unacceptable” and insisted that “all must face up to their responsibilities.” According to French diplomats at the time and later, the speech was meant to signal France’s acceptance of the threat to use force, so long as the ultimate decision to do so remained in the Security Council’s hands.

Two weeks later Chirac granted an interview to the New York Times

in which he also left the door open to French support for a threat to use force in Iraq. Chirac repeated his opposition to “unilateral actions” and said he wanted to hear directly from Bush about U.S. policy. But like de

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Villepin, he also condemned the Iraqi regime “for all the reasons we know, for all the dangers that it puts on the region and the tragedy it constitutes for the Iraqi people who are being held hostage by it.” Saddam, according to Chirac, was “especially dangerous to his own people, who are living under extraordinarily difficult circumstances.” The French leader distanced himself from Schröder’s “categorical” position, which he said was linked to the German election, and noted that France had special responsibilities as a permanent member of the Security Council.

Chirac also revealed a proposal for two separate Security Council resolutions that would soon become a key element of the French posi- tion. “There must be a Security Council decision concerning the return of the inspectors,” he said. If the inspectors were not allowed to return, “then there should be a second Security Council resolution to say if there should be or not an intervention.” Asked specifically about mili- tary solutions, he answered that “nothing is impossible, if it’s decided by the international community on the basis of indisputable proof.” Chirac claimed that such proof for the moment did not exist, but still held out the possibility that France might actually come around and support war in Iraq.

The new tone from Paris, as qualified as it was, would prove criti- cal in convincing many Americans that in the right circumstances France might ultimately be willing to support the use of force. Former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke was among many who predicted that France would “undoubtedly play its normal role as a difficult and contentious ally, but in the end, it will not stop the concerted will of America and Britain.” This assumption, shared by many in the admin- istration, helped to persuade Bush that going back to the UN for a new resolution would not be futile, which may have been one of the reasons for the change of rhetoric in Paris in the first place.

The British also reacted to Cheney, albeit from a different starting point. While the British public and much of the governing Labor party

were deeply opposed to war, the UK government, and Prime Minister Tony Blair in particular, had long taken a hawkish approach to Iraq. Blair had supported all previous U.S. military actions against Iraq, including Operation Desert Fox in 1998 and the more recent intensi- fied enforcement of the no-fly zones in northern Iraq, in which British forces played an active part. Indeed, Blair had long taken a clear moral stand on defending human rights and confronting dictators with his determination to stand up to Serbian ruler Slobodan Milosevic during the Kosovo conflict. He articulated a doctrine of military intervention then, in the name of upholding international values and rules, and took the lead in advocating the use of ground forces if necessary to ensure victory. Singling out Milosevic and Saddam Hussein as “dangerous and ruthless men,” Blair denounced the “evil” of ethnic cleansing and insist- ed that “evil dictators” must be challenged early lest doing so prove even more costly later on.

According to people close to him, Blair, like Bush and many other Americans, concluded from the September 11 attacks that the potential linkage between terrorism and weapons of mass destruction was the strategic issue of our time and required decisive action. According to British journalist Hugo Young, Blair has even claimed that if Bush had held back from intervening in Iraq, he would have pushed him in that direction.

The British government thus had no problem with Cheney’s threat of military force against Iraq. Already in March 2002, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had warned of “consequences” if Saddam continued to refuse weapons inspections. But the British public, and most of the Labor party in particular, were strongly opposed to war, and even more opposed to the specter of Britain coming to the rescue of the unilater- alism of George W. Bush. Blair thus felt that the only way to win domestic support was to get UN approval for a forceful stance. For months, in fact, UK officials had been pressing the Americans to go back to the UN for any new authorization of a threat to use force, a

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message Blair’s top security adviser, David Manning, was sent to Washington to reiterate in July 2002. Straw had made the same case to Powell on numerous occasions.

With Cheney’s speech suggesting that the message might not be getting through, Blair himself flew to see Bush at Camp David on September 7, to stress how critically important it was for the United States to go back to the UN. He did not say that Britain’s support for possible war was contingent on a new UN resolution (“Blair would never say that,” one of the Prime Minister’s advisers asserted), but he made clear how politically difficult it would be for him without a new resolution. What Blair didn’t realize before arriving in Washington was that Bush, persuaded by Powell, had already decided to take his case to the UN; Blair found himself pushing on an open door.

Persuaded by Powell and the British to take his case to the UN— and encouraged by a new French position that seemed to hold out promise that a tough new resolution could be agreed upon—Bush on September 12 challenged the UN to enforce its own resolutions. “All the world now faces a test,” he said, “and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?” Bush made clear that the United States reserved the right to act alone if the UN failed: “The Security Council resolutions will be enforced—the just demands of peace and security will be met—or action will be un- avoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power.” But, in a statement that some of his hard-line advisers tried to take out of the speech at the last minute, he also accepted the need to work with the international community: “We will work with the UN Security Council for the necessary resolutions.” Europeans were deeply relieved, and saw hope that the United States was finally accept- ing a multilateral approach and the possibility of a peaceful resolution of the crisis.