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Copyright 2003 Newsweek  
Newsweek


February 10, 2003, U.S. Edition


SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 54

LENGTH: 861 words

HEADLINE: A Dangerous Trust Deficit

BYLINE: By Fareed Zakaria

HIGHLIGHT:
Europe faces a test. The rising tide of anti-Americanism might destroy
the Atlantic Alliance and impoverish the life of Europe.

BODY:
"We can't do an Adlai Stevenson," admitted an administration official
about Colin Powell's upcoming speech to the U.N. Security Council. What
he meant was that the administration did not have the smoking gun that
Stevenson had when he presented the Council with images of Soviet
missiles in Cuba in 1962. But the real difference between 1962 and now
is not what we say, but what people hear. Remember that in 1962 the
"smoking gun" Stevenson presented to the world was a set of grainy
aerial photographs with white smudges. The smudges, he explained, were
Soviet missiles. And everyone believed him. Today, if Powell had digital
video footage of Iraqi scientists caught in the act of manufacturing
anthrax, there are many around the world--and increasingly in
Europe--who would claim that Washington had manufactured the images.

The French, who are today the most disbelieving, played a special role
in the 1962 crisis. After deciding to blockade Cuba, President Kennedy
sent a special envoy, Dean Acheson, to France's President Charles de
Gaulle. Acheson offered to show him the photographs. De Gaulle refused.
"This is mere evidence," he said, "and great nations such as yours would
not take a serious step if there were any doubt about evidence." What we
have today is not the lack of evidence, it's the lack of trust.

The United States has done its part to contribute to this atmosphere
with careless and confrontational talk and actions. Other than Colin
Powell and Condoleezza Rice, no one in the administration has bothered
to build and nurture relationships with their counterparts abroad--odd
when you consider that this was one of the chief skills of the elder
President Bush. Dick Cheney has taken exactly one foreign trip in his
current job, probably setting a record as the least-traveled vice
president since John Nance Garner.

But the toxic atmosphere of anti-Americanism prevailing in Europe these
days seems to go beyond any specific policy. Traveling through Europe
last week, I was confronted with a barrage of angry questions and
simmering suspicion. Most frequent was the charge that Washington's
"obsession with Iraq" was all about oil. (Spending $100 billion on war
and postwar reconstruction just to get a better deal on oil, which
Saddam is willing to sell to anyone anyway, doesn't make much sense, but
never mind.) One highly intelligent executive asked me why we wanted to
get rid of Iraq's chemical and biological agents while maintaining our
own arsenal of these weapons. When I explained that in fact the United
States did not have such an arsenal, the gentleman looked skeptically at
me and said, "officially." He found it entirely plausible that the
oldest constitutional democracy in the world has secret weapons labs
with armies of scientists manufacturing poison gas.

Many assume that French intransigence on Iraq is just a ploy to extract
bribes from Washington and that France will eventually come onboard. If
so, the French will have cheapened their credibility. The next time they
threaten a veto, we will all just sigh and take out our checkbooks. If
they choose to use their veto, they will make the Security Council--and
France--irrelevant in the first major military action of the 21st
century. That doesn't strike me as a victory for France. It is in
France's interests to have American power stay tethered to the United
Nations.

Iraq is a historical pivot for European-American relations. France and
Germany, historically the core and driving force of Europe, face a test.
How do they want to position themselves in a world dominated by the
United States--as partners or competitors? The Atlantic alliance might
appear to be a remnant from the cold war, but in fact it is the core of
the new international order. If America and Europe can agree on
something, they create an international standard--a kind of
magnet--around which other countries coalesce. That is how things work
in the world of trade. But if these two great continents begin
diverging, and if Europe peels apart, then there will be no core around
which an international community can form. Then other countries--most
importantly Russia and China--will go their own ways, jockeying for
advantage and forging their own alliances, rather than being integrated
into a new peaceful world order. It could be a return to 19th-century
realpolitik.

Europe's leaders face a test, but so do its people. The rising strain of
anti-Americanism might destroy the Atlantic alliance but it will also
impoverish the life of Europe. A Swiss friend told me that a few weeks
ago his 14-year-old son told him that everyone in his school believed
that the CIA had destroyed the World Trade Center so that America could
invade Afghanistan. This happened not in the mosques of Saudi Arabia but
in the schools of Switzerland. It is the kind of paranoid lunacy one
associates with broken and dysfunctional societies, not with the
civilization that created the modern world. The Middle East appears
finally to have begun to confront the demons and delusions that produce
these kinds of conspiracy theories. Does Europe really want to become
the next Middle East?

GRAPHIC: PHOTO: War ready: But the jet fighter in not French

LOAD-DATE: February 6, 2003