Allies Urge U.S. to Think Before Reacting to Attack

America’s allies have promised to help find and punish those who perpetrated this week’s attacks in the U.S. But as pressure mounts for some form of military retribution, cracks were already forming Thursday in the avowed united front against terrorism.

All 19 NATO member states have committed themselves to a campaign against fanatics and have taken Tuesday’s attacks as assaults on their own values. But some of the closest friends of the U.S. are nervously urging patience and are clearly uneasy with a wounded America’s desire for revenge.

Throughout Europe, voices are warning of the dangers of escalating the crisis with indiscriminate airstrikes that could kill innocent civilians or provoke a global holy war between the West and Islam. There are also fears that the powerful anger gripping Americans and even their allies could lead to the demonization of all Muslims as U.S. investigators focus their attention on exiled Saudi militant Osama bin Laden and the nation that shelters him, Afghanistan.

Political will, military muscle and popular support are in place for crushing those who committed this week’s carnage, but the questions of how, when and where to fight an elusive enemy are complicating the quest for a coordinated response, even at this early juncture.

“I hope we all remain calm and do not now speak of a state of alarm,” cautioned German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping. “We do not face a war. We face the question of what is an appropriate response.”

In Paris, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin warned that a precipitous attack could unleash wider instability: “We should not start thinking in terms of a confrontation between the Western world and the Islamic world as such. . . . We have friends and partners there. We must keep our heads.”

France, Germany and other European countries have had closer, more trade-oriented ties with nations often labeled “rogue” states by the U.S., and they therefore have more to lose if allies of America become identified with U.S. actions that inflict “collateral damage”--a euphemism for dead civilians.

NATO member Turkey, which neighbors Islamic powers still seething over the nation’s help to U.S. forces targeting Iraq during and since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, faces security risks for even limited cooperation in any strike against Afghanistan.

“I hope that the United States will not act rashly and [will] take international public opinion into account when weighing its response,” former Turkish President Suleyman Demirel said. “I hope they will not try and pin this act on an entire region or an entire ethnic group, but that they will have the prescience to punish only those who were responsible for this act of terrorism.”

A British government source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said any decision on retaliatory strikes would not be immediate. U.S. investigators must first establish the names and location of those responsible, then try to persuade the host country to extradite them.

“The danger is that we jump ahead,” he said.

Although British Prime Minister Tony Blair has pledged solidarity with U.S. counter-terrorism efforts, analysts say that even in the prevailing atmosphere of anger and vengeance, there might be limits to the role played by Washington’s strongest ally in the Gulf action. Britain may be reluctant to provoke internal strife among its many Islamic communities by lashing out at a generic target.

“The host country question becomes very difficult,” said Adam Roberts, an international security expert at Oxford University. “You’ve got to think carefully about the objective of your attack. Spraying 60 cruise missiles at Bin Laden like we did last time [in a 1998 U.S. attack] was useless. Sending an expeditionary force to conquer the country is inviting trouble.”

On Wednesday, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization invoked for the first time a defense clause that deems an attack on any member a move against the entire alliance. That obliges member countries to provide support for any military operation to eradicate a foreign threat.

But domestic pressures could reduce any NATO operation to a collective action in name only, with U.S. forces carrying out the strikes while allies provide peripheral support, such as use of national airspace or intelligence data.

After the NATO declaration, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder denounced the terrorist attacks as “a declaration of war against the civilized world” and promised unfettered support to the U.S. forces that once lifted Germany out of the rubble of postwar despair. But Defense Minister Scharping told German television that the nature and extent of the support were still undecided.

No visible campaign to win over allied participation was underway Thursday. But U.S. diplomats in Europe--including the just-arrived ambassador to Germany, former Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.)--so far have been taking the lead in collaborating on a common response.

Coats said he has been assured in meetings with Germany’s president and foreign and defense ministers that Berlin fully supports the fight against terrorism. But he also expressed understanding for allies’ concerns that retaliatory strikes be directed at appropriate targets.

President Bush’s vow to go after the terrorists and those who harbor them--interpreted by many to be a reference to Afghanistan’s fundamentalist Islamic Taliban regime--has left some allies fearful that they might be asked to help strike a symbolic target and endanger civilians.

France was a lukewarm ally in previous U.S.-led attacks in the Balkans and the Middle East, and Defense Minister Alain Richard echoed Jospin’s concerns about misdirected reaction in declaring that “the aim of an armed strike against a terrorist menace is to improve security, not to complicate matters further.”

Italy’s tone was more hawkish, but officials still foresee retaliation involving a limited number of players. “We are in uncharted waters,” said a senior official. “We don’t know what comes next. If you think in terms of military action, the support the United States would need might be minimal.”

Some allies argue that if an Islamic group is found to be responsible, the U.S. must build as broad and multicultural a coalition as possible to isolate the radical fringe from the peaceful Muslim mainstream.

Although not officially an ally, Russia has shown the most enthusiasm for a punishing blow against suspected fanatics.

“NATO and Russia are united in their resolve not to let those responsible for such an inhuman act go unpunished,” the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council in Brussels said in a rare statement.

*

Times staff writers Richard Boudreaux in Rome, Marjorie Miller in London and Sebastian Rotella in Paris and special correspondents Ela Kasprzycka in Warsaw and Amberin Zaman in Istanbul, Turkey, contributed to this report.