Bush policy risks terminal strain in NATO

[Stoic]

This is too depressing even to comment on.

International Herald Tribune

"The trans-Atlantic alliance is under what may be terminal strain. George Robertson says NATO will provide no further help to the United States in Iraq - meaning that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's principal European members refuse to let the alliance do so.

NATO might survive the present crisis, but only as a structure providing U.S. bases in ex-Communist Europe. The United States is going in one direction, and NATO's European Union members in another, a rival direction.

This is a reluctant choice by the Europeans, but their perception of Washington has in the last two years changed dramatically. The United States is now seen in Europe as a threat to Europe's independence. The American side does not understand this.

During the last few weeks, I have been at a half dozen European conferences bringing together political specialists and policy analysts, as well as past or present officials from both sides of the Atlantic, to talk about current affairs and the future.

The declared subjects differed: Italian-American relations, European security, global financial and economic issues, questions of world order. In every case, wherever it started, discussion quickly turned into a debate about how to cope with the Bush administration's new America, seen as a disturber of world peace and a risk to the security even of its allies..."