Reagan Drives Wedge Into NATO With Nicaragua War

Whenever the Soviet Union makes an arms-control proposal that attracts interest in Western Europe but disapproval in Washington, Moscow is accused of “trying to drive a wedge into NATO.” Yet no move by Mikhail S. Gorbachev has been as divisive for the Atlantic Alliance as the one that Ronald Reagan caused to open up two weeks ago. The weekend wood-chopper of Santa Barbara is turning out to have added a remarkable wedge-driving skill to his other ranching talents.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s member states were faced with a resolution in the U.N. General Assembly urging the United States to abandon its support for the Nicaraguan contras in line with the World Court’s ruling that such aid was illegal. Torn between loyalty to the United States and acceptance of the principles of international law, NATO split three ways. Canada, Denmark, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain voted for the resolution and against the United States. Great Britain, France, West Germany, Italy and Portugal chose to sit on their hands in embarrassment. Even Turkey, NATO’s least democratic member and one that is heavily dependent on American aid, dared to join the camp of the abstainers. The United States was isolated in voting against the General Assembly resolution. Its only supporters were Israel and El Salvador.

Fortunately for the Administration, the NATO divisions took place on the day of the U.S. mid-term elections, and received little, if any, attention in the European media--and not much, I suspect, in the American media, either. Western European governments were as reluctant to advertise the split as the Reagan Administration was. Yet it comes as no real surprise, given the widespread concern and hostility in Europe to the U.S.-sponsored war against Nicaragua. No NATO government has gone along with the U.S. trade restrictions on Nicaragua, and several still give aid.

It has to be said that not all of the Administration’s European friends feel strongly about its policies in Central America. Margaret Thatcher and Helmut Kohl, President Reagan’s staunchest ideological allies, probably would support him if they could, even though they do not agree with him fully. Their officials talk of the Administration’s “obsession with Nicaragua” as though it is some mental disorder beyond rational discussion--the sort of subject that you avoid bringing up with Ronald Reagan, but try to humor him about if he mentions it. After all, Cuba may be described as being on America’s doorstep; it is hard to say the same of Nicaragua, which is as far from Florida as Algeria is from London.

But both Prime Minister Thatcher and Chancellor Kohl have to take account of their countries’ public opinion, which is overwhelmingly opposed to the American war. Whatever their personal views, they cannot afford to support the United States openly.

Hundreds of young West Europeans have gone to Nicaragua to work for a few weeks or a year on development projects. One of their motivations is precisely to see just what kind of society so attracts the hostility of the United States. By coincidence, whereas no American volunteer has yet died in contra attacks, eight of these European volunteers have, by the last count.

In June, Kohl was severely embarrassed when a group of West German volunteers was taken hostage by the contras. His government was uncertain about how to react, since it hardly wanted to draw attention to Washington’s double standard of condemning terrorism in the Middle East while supporting it in Central America. It was left to the opposition Social Democratic Party to negotiate the release of the hostages.

Now comes the Hasenfus affair, and the evidence of direct U.S. involvement in dropping arms and ammunition for use against the Nicaraguan government. Europeans have never put much credence in the original reasons that the Reagan Administration offered for its concern about the Sandinistas--the claim that they were arming the guerrillas in El Salvador. The Hasenfus debacle shows that the opposite is the case: It is the United States, through El Salvador, that is running guns and trying to subvert Nicaragua.

The fundamental issue for most Europeans has been the one that the International Court of Justice emphasized in its judgment. Whatever one thinks of the Sandinistas, their country has a right to its independence. Indeed, the definition of independence is precisely that countries must be able to choose forms of government that their neighbors and other, more distant, states might object to.

Reagan was able to win a majority in Congress for his anti-Nicaragua war because most members of Congress were unable or unwilling to accept this. Even many of those who opposed Reagan did so on pragmatic grounds: Would aid to the contras drive the Sandinistas into Moscow’s arms? Was it the most effective way to put pressure on Nicaragua? Would American troops be dragged in?

It was a pity that so few members of Congress dared to take the stand on principle rather than on pragmatism that half of NATO’s governments took at the United Nations last week: The United States has no right to interfere by force of arms in a far-away country’s internal affairs.