The United States can't do it alone
By Ze'ev Schiff
Haaretz, January 30, 2004
In the negotiations with Hezbollah, which were also indirect negotiations with Iran, it again became clear that there are things the United States cannot achieve on its own in the Middle East and that it needs help from Europe.
Hezbollah, as an organization that has murdered many Americans over the years, has good reason to be wary of the United States, but Washington was not able at this time to conduct negotiations on a "prisoners deal" for Israel. Thanks to its connections, Germany succeeded in bringing the other side, Hezbollah and Iran, to this deal. At present, Hezbollah fears that Europe, like Washington, will also define it as a terror organization. The regime in Tehran also wants to unburden itself of the Ron Arad case that it has been carrying around. At one stage in the past, the Iranians tried to pin the case on Damascus, when they told the Germans that Arad was no longer alive and that his body would be returned by the Syrians. Hafez Assad balked at the time against the Iranian trick.
It was the Europeans - Britain, France and Germany - that played a key role in "persuading" Tehran that it had to reveal the lies concerning nuclear development in Iran, contrary to the international agreements it had signed, and also to sign the Additional Protocol enabling increased inspection. Washington alone could not do this, despite its threats and its massive military presence close to Iran. The three European countries could not have done it alone, either, but when Tehran realized that Europe could very well join the United States in imposing sanctions, it admitted the lies.
In the past, Washington sent its planes to bomb in Libya because of terror acts by Libyan intelligence. Nevertheless, Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi embarked on the path of developing nuclear weapons. Even after he agreed to pay heavy compensation for the blowing up of the Pan Am plane and the French passenger plane, he purchased more nuclear equipment. Only when Britain joined the American pressure did things begin to move and inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency were permitted to enter Libya. Again it was proved that Washington on its own finds it difficult to complete such goals.
This is also true to a large extent with respect to Washington's war aims in Iraq. The United States won the battle in an impressive way and deposed and captured Saddam Hussein. Yet here, too, it needs Europe in order to bring its strategic aims in Iraq to completion.
The phenomenon of relying on other key factors is also occurring in the struggle against the nuclearization of North Korea. Washington is threatening North Korea, but its leaders are not retreating. It has gone ahead and violated interim agreements on a compromise. It turns out that recently Washington has been relying more and more on China, which has no interest in North Korea becoming an atomic power. But it is clear to the Americans that they will have to pay Beijing for help against the nuclearization of North Korea.
At the moment, Washington is in no hurry to pay the Europeans for their services in the Middle East. They brought them into the quartet that prepared the road map, but National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has been reminding them that the soloist in this quartet is the United States. But Israel must pay attention to the fact that, in the background, the British are insisting on playing an active role in what happens between Israel and the Palestinians. At the National Security Council in Washington, they do not like this because it seems to them that, with the help of the British, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat will try to return to center stage in an indirect way. This makes it easier for the government of Israel to reply in the negative to London, but the final word has not yet been said on this issue.
