Europeans Not Ready To Support Iran War
If the United States decides it must go to war with Iran it better not expect much support from Europe, The Washington Times reports:
The United States, in any military confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program, can expect even less support from its European allies than it received during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
“Europeans have already gone as far as they can as a group in playing hardball with Iran and are on the brink of rethinking their position at this point in time. Any escalation is certainly not in the interest of Europeans; it plays into the hands of extremists on both sides,” said Antonio Missiroli, chief policy analyst at the Brussels-based European Policy Center.
He noted that European leaders and diplomats are expressing reservations about the tough line Britain and France have adopted on sanctions.
“Diplomacy has got a long way to run,” said Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform in London. “But a few years down the line, we may have a serious trans-Atlantic rift over Iran.”
Clearly, there are several factors at play here. The Europeans evidently want to make sure diplomatic options are exhausted before they will seriously entertain war. They also seem to be looking for some kind of middle ground — and that is subject for debate in itself: can there be a middle ground position when it comes to the provocative, threat-issuing government in Tehran?
But complicating all of this is the Bush administration’s past record. Europeans were not happy about the invasion of Iraq and disputed Washington’s state reasons at the time for going to war. The Bush administration may fudge on the original reasons it gave (but they are on tape and easily accessible to anyone who wants to do a Google search) but the record is clear. For Europeans to go along with an American decision (if it comes) to go to war with Iran would probably require a HIGHER STANDARD to convince them.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who discussed the Iran crisis with President Bush at the White House this week, is reported to be concerned that piling pressure on the hard-line regime in Tehran could shatter international unity on the issue.
Merkel is also proving to be one of Europe’s most astute leaders and politicians. Will Washington take note? And should it?
5 Responses to “Europeans Not Ready To Support Iran War”
I don’t know that you will be able to rely on help and assistance from Britain even, given the results of the local elections this last week.
Given this kind of electoral reaction in Britain, can you imagine that Blair will have much stomach for piling Iran on top of a gutsful of Iraq?
And again…
Now just what do you think that might mean after the political newspeak has been filtered out?
Here again, Europeans have economic interest in Iran. That and their more leftist trend would guarantee them declining. I wonder if they would support it even if Iran attacked Israel? Many of their citizens are more supportive of the Palestinians.
Yeah J toad you’re my boy!
Who cares if the Europeans and the even the Sauds don’t want us to nuke Iran. I say we accidently drop a couple big ones on Paris!
We don’t need em! I fught terrorism by driving my hummer! It’s the Republican way! Stick me with your high oil, prices, I can pay em! My house is appreciating 15% every year so by the time I retire I’ll be a billioniare! That’s why everyone in the world wants to lend us money!
We don’t need them, they need us and we need to nuke them to make them grateful. All these people who talk about how it’s going to be years befoe the Iranians can make a bomb, that the big mouthed president is not really a power and how the real rulers don’t really want to turn their 3 thousand year old empire into Chernobyl miss the point.
A war in October might rally the people to the Republicans! The fate of the nation is at stake!
Nuke Iran now!
We don’t care what the rest of the world thinks. We’re not even convinced it even exists. This is the Amerixan way. All we ask is that they love us and lend us money and if they don’t love us then God told us to kill them.
Hey, Probligo,
Blair already came out with a statement a week or so ago, decisively letting us know not to rely on Britain’s help if the GREAT UNILATERAL DECIDER chooses to invade Iran. Must be seeing his own neck on the chopping block!
@ Kritter
Did he really? I thought Blair fired Jack Straw to keep his options open. Straw called the idea of an attack on Iran “nuts.”
Bush certainly tries very hard to charm us Germans, but we won’t support a war on Iran in the next couple of years. He tried hard to heal the wounds from the Iraq disagreements and praised Germany’s foreign policy.
The Bush administration and the US press seem to appreciate Chancellor Merkel’s role in the Iran negotiations, since both the British and the French government currently got big internal problems and Germany has the best relations with Iran. Bush’s Spanish and Italian allies lost the elections.