Europe Sees U.S. Foreign Policy as Out of Control

The unfolding Iran arms scandal has seriously damaged America’s credibility among its closest European allies and resurrected questions about America’s effectiveness as the acknowledged leader of the Western alliance.

For many Europeans, the unfolding scandal has reinforced the disturbing perception of recent months that President Reagan has somehow let American foreign policy slip dangerously out of control.

Tension Between Allies

In general, European disquiet about Reagan’s conduct of foreign policy is not new. His lack of enthusiasm for the second strategic arms limitation agreement, his attempts to block the participation of European companies in the Soviet trans-Siberian gas pipeline project and his decisions to invade Grenada and bomb Libya all added a degree of tension between Washington and its alliance partners.

But the image of disarray conveyed by the Iran arms issue is viewed on this side of the Atlantic as far more than differences of policy.

” . . . Libya disinformation, Reykjavik, Iran, SALT II--they all add up to a great weakening in the confidence of American foreign policy,” said Sir James Eberle, director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London.

‘What Is Going On?’

Writing in the London Daily Telegraph, normally reserved Oxford historian Sir Michael Howard exclaimed, “What is going on in Washington and what will they come up with next?”

The chain of unpredictable, unconventional incidents within the space of a few months has already revived questions in Europe about the wisdom of political overdependence on the United States.

French Premier Jacques Chirac, for example, in a major speech Tuesday in Paris, called for a West European charter of security principles to safeguard the European members of the Atlantic Alliance.

Concerns About Summit

He specifically mentioned concern about actions at the summit meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, where an apparently ill-prepared Reagan appeared ready to accept elimination of U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals without specific provisions for reducing Moscow’s superiority in conventional weapons in Europe.

Chirac referred to a feeling, “whether justified or not, that decisions vital to the security of Europe could be taken without Europe really having any say in the matter.”

A similar feeling surrounds disclosures that Washington sent arms to Iran in hopes of freeing American hostages in Lebanon at a time when Europeans have mustered an unusual degree of unity behind a tough “no negotiations” policy toward the backers of state-sponsored terrorism.

Britain--which is concerned about three British citizens being held hostage in Lebanon but which nevertheless actively supported the U.S. air raid on the Libyan mainland and led the European move toward a hard anti-terrorist line--feels especially aggrieved by the disclosures.

“We see eye to eye with the declared American policy of not negotiating with terrorists,” a British Foreign Office spokesman noted. “Anything contrary to this policy is decidedly unhelpful.”

Aid for Rebels

The dearth of European support for the President’s Central America policies has made the affair even more difficult for Europeans to comprehend because of disclosures that profits from the arms sold to Iran were channeled to rebels in Nicaragua.

The British weekly The Economist dubbed the affair “Iranagua.”

Disclosures of the arms shipments to Iran at a time when the Administration was heavily pressuring its allies to isolate Tehran economically has, at least for now, effectively undermined American influence in this policy area.

In Japan, there are signs that firms that have so far refrained from contacts with Iran may now be more willing to deal with the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s government.

In Britain, the possible sale of $40-million worth of Land Rovers to Iran requires fewer justifications in official circles.

U.S. diplomats in Europe who once applied heavy pressure on potential suppliers to Iran now admit being too embarrassed by their government’s actions to even raise the subject.

Criticism Muted

So far, however, official European government criticism of the scandal has been muted by the recognition of its enormity and a genuine concern that it could eventually leave both Reagan and the alliance he leads unable to deal effectively with Moscow on important arms control issues.

Officials want to avoid contributing to any further erosion of his position.

“It does the Western world no good for an American President to get into something like this,” a close aide of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher noted. “We can only hope he gets out of it quickly.”

In Rome, Italian Foreign Ministry officials refused to discuss the subject even off the record.

When expressed privately, officials’ sentiments reflect the level of concern of Western Europe’s more vocal political commentators and non-government politicians.

Loss of Trust

“The loss of trust (in Washington) is much greater than the objective damage from this affair,” said West Germany’s Franz Josef Strauss, premier of the state of Bavaria and a prominent right-wing politician who has backed Reagan Administration policies in the past. “American foreign policy must be dependable and predictable.”

Added Theo Sommer, editor-in-chief of the Hamburg weekly Die Zeit: “Now we see that the President is naked. The collapse of his foreign policy is not a mishap; it flows logically from the way he runs his ship--not by the steady hand of the helmsman but by the dangerous rolls of the loose cannon.”

With few exceptions, however, this criticism seems to emanate more from a sense of sadness for the President’s plight and concern about the implications for Europe than from the disdain reflected in the comments of earlier years, when he was portrayed as a hip-shooting cowboy.

“In order to avoid it reaching proportions of a personal and national tragedy, Ronald Reagan must above all succeed in blocking the already incipient outlines of the ‘Watergate dynamics’ that are emerging from the Iranian crisis,” the Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera commented.

Some Europeans worry that it was Reagan’s unusual popularity that won him the initial respect of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and that, without it, Moscow may find it easier to wring concessions from Washington.

Trade War Feared

In both Europe and Japan, there are concerns that a weakened President may be less able to sidetrack new congressional attempts to impose tariffs or quotas on imports--a development that they feel might result in a trade war and a global economic slump.

Such preoccupations reflect the view that Europeans have come to credit Reagan with successes as well as failures and see him as a source of stability, in part because, more than any one individual, he has managed to restore America’s sense of self-confidence.

“If the symbol of that confidence is brought low by a grubby intrigue,” The Economist summed up, “the world will be a rougher, riskier place.”