The Americas

La gravité de la crise européenne et transatlantique ne tient pas tant aux injures et ressentiments réciproques, qui se propagent pourtant comme une traînée de poudre, qu'à la conjonction de deux mouvements ravageurs : une Amérique sans mémoire, une Europe sans vision.

Most Americans see the regime of Saddam Hussein as a major threat to regional and international security that must be thwarted, even if that means threatening or even using military force. If Saddam were to acquire nuclear weapons, they fear, he would seek to use them to dominate the Middle East, possibly invading his neighbours as he has in the past and perhaps deterring the United States from stopping him.

American actions in the extended wake of 11 September are increasingly perplexing Europeans, the Administration’s spurning of the International Criminal Court (ICC) being only the latest in a string of disagreements that have beset transatlantic relations over recent months. Indeed, the sight of an American administration threatening not just to withdraw from UN peacekeeping missions but to veto them unless its forces are exempted from the court’s jurisdiction has perplexed even the closest of America’s allies, not least because the US had defined the mission and method of the court. Clearly, the ICC was not the actual cause of Washington’s irritation. Rather, it was the nature of what constitutes legitimate constraint upon a superpower with global responsibilities

In the last two years or so, the situation in the Middle East has been quickly evolving from instability to war, while neither the local actors nor the United States, individual European countries or the European Union have been able to react to prevent it. Many new factors shaping the region are making it more dangerous.