– NATO...Are Its Final Days Just Ahead

A US attack of Iran will break NATO in pieces
by Franck Biancheri

EDITO - 2006 is full of ‘explosive issues’ within NATO which are generating bitter relations between the US and its most faithful partners. There is also this growing feeling among Europeans that European defense and security interests are not any more converging with the US ones. In the case of a US attack on Iran, Washington should not expect to divide the Europeans and NATO will fall apart

• Europe 2020 will publish next week in its GlobalEurope Anticipation Bulletin, a very interesting series of indicators regarding the Europeans and the Iran/USA crisis, such as:
? 58% think the current Iran crisis is an indicator of a weakening US influence on worldwide affairs.
? 59% of them think that the UN Security council will be unable to agree on any sanctions concerning Iran.
? 78% believe that NATO has become weaker during the past three years.
? 93% of them think that their fellow countrymen within EU Member States will not support a US attack on Iran.

Therefore, I am even more convinced today of what I wrote on this topic in Newropeans-Magazine in December 2004 ( A US unilateral military move concerning Iran will break NATO in pieces ):
“… But Washington should not expect to divide the Europeans on that issue (attacking Iran). Leaders commitment and populations' concern are too strong and converging here, throughout the whole of Europe, to expect any significant change in coming months or years. Therefore if Washington wants to move unilaterally anyhow (or leave Israel do so, which in Europeans eyes will be the same), it would have to do it really alone (or only with Israel). The current US administration may believe that it can afford to do so, that Europeans anyhow do not matter. This is a choice which indeed has to be its own.”

But there will at least one clear-cut consequence: NATO will fall apart from that attack onwards (or more exactly it will become a discussion forum while the Europeans will speed up the European Common Defense Policy). It is already becoming much harder for even the most supportive US partners among NATO countries to send out troops on US request, as shown for instance recently with The Netherlands regarding troops for Afghanistan. Meanwhile 2006 is full of ‘explosive issues’ within NATO which are generating bitter relations between the US and its most faithful partners (such as the Joint Strike Fighter programme which creates major tensions with UK).

There is also this growing feeling among Europeans that European defense and security interests are not any more converging with the US ones; a feeling which an attack of Iran will transform into a certainty that those interests are actually diverging.

Furthermore, there is a very new parameter compared to the invasion of Iraq era: the new understanding that US economic imbalances make the US almost completely dependent upon the rest of the world not only for funding the American way of life, but also for funding the American way of waging wars. Simply said, the Europeans (and they are not the only ones in the world having done so) have now understood that the US cannot pay for its war machine unless the rest of the world (which essentially means China, Japan and the EU) actually pays for it (for instance by buying each month US Treasury Bonds).

Nobody should forget that the Europeans are holding 50% of US assets worldwide, and that every month, the EU comes only second to China in terms of US trade deficit; though I think that Washington will forget it.

Washington will therefore ignore the 93% of Europeans who are opposing its military stance concerning Iran. It will most certainly also ignore the other options on the table, including the possibility to use the Iran crisis for starting the negotiations on a renovated Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty[1], better adapted to 21st century challenges. It may indeed. But the USA, as a country, will pay a hefty price for such an irresponsible attitude because it will find itself alone, with Israel. It has already lost most of its allies in Latin America (its own historical ‘backyard’). When losing the Europeans, it is difficult to imagine which ‘strategic partner’ the US can find to replace them for the 21st century. And to be a lonely country in this century will definitely not be a place of choice.

But it seems that current US leaders, Republicans and Democrats, as well as a significant part of the US population, could not care less about it. While in the past three/four years, many Europeans have already started to pave the way for alternatives. A US attack on Iran will certainly fasten the whole process.

Franck Biancheri
President of Newropeans