Both Sides Deserve a Degree of Blame for Transatlantic Chill

It’s easy to identify President Bush’s contributions to the chill in relations across the Atlantic:

The early abandonment of the Kyoto accord on global warming and the antiballistic missile treaty. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s snide dismissal of “old Europe.” The clear indication throughout the United Nations debate that the U.S. would invade Iraq with or without explicit international authorization.

In all these ways, Bush has shown himself willing -- and, at times, apparently even eager -- to ignore the opinions of others.

But after last week’s European Union and NATO summits, it’s worth exploring the European contributions to the tension. Twice, the Europeans -- led by France -- rebuffed sensible requests from Bush that were not only in the interest of the United States, but manifestly to Europe’s advantage as well.

Perhaps that means, as many Democrats in the U.S. contend, that Bush has so poisoned transatlantic relations that America cannot expect any meaningful help so long as he is president. But perhaps, more ominously, it means that Democratic expectations that a President John Kerry would receive a new burst of cooperation are misplaced.

The first evidence came at the NATO summit. The role NATO accepted in Iraq was the bare minimum necessary to avoid an open breach with Bush. Not only did the alliance refuse to commit any combat troops, as the administration once hoped, but it offered only the vaguest of promises to train Iraqi forces. Key members of the alliance even suggested that the instruction would have to occur in Europe, not Iraq. That means almost as many Iraqis will probably visit Europe this year for vacation as for training.

If the point was to send Bush a message, the refusal to send combat troops would have been sufficient. Minimizing the training seems willfully spiteful and fundamentally at odds with the dominant attitude in Europe about the occupation.

The general view in Europe is that the massive deployment of American troops in Iraq is a disaster, inflaming anti-Western sentiment in the Islamic world. Yet the only realistic way to reduce the American presence is to create an Iraqi force capable of stabilizing the country. By refusing significant training assistance, the NATO allies set back that day -- thus perpetuating the situation they condemn.

The dynamic was similar in the reaction to Bush’s call during the trip for Turkey’s admission to the European Union. Speaking in Istanbul, Bush said that a decision fulfilling Turkey’s long-standing quest to join the EU would show that the West was open to cooperation with the Muslim world and would reward Turkey for its steps toward greater liberty, thus demonstrating that Islam and democracy were compatible. The EU’s decision is due in December.

Considering that Turkey last year denied the United States permission to use the country as a base for invading Iraq, Bush’s remarks were magnanimous and farsighted. But his comments drew immediate contempt from French President Jacques Chirac. Roughly translated from the French, Chriac’s message was concise: Butt out. Other European diplomats echoed the sentiment in comments to reporters.

Yet Bush has a strong case, both on the narrow merits of Turkey’s admission to the EU and on the decision’s broader implications. As Stephen Kinzer points out in the latest New York Review of Books, winning entry to the EU -- which would integrate Turkey’s economy more closely into Europe’s -- has become the central mission of the Islamist but pro-Western government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In pursuit of admission to the EU, Kinzer notes, Erdogan has not only pursued sweeping economic reform but also “secured passage of laws and constitutional amendments abolishing the death penalty and army-dominated security courts, ... repealed curbs on free speech, and brought the military budget under civilian control for the first time in Turkish history.”

Europeans have legitimate concerns. Turkey’s admission would obligate the EU to provide the country large amounts of aid. It could also trigger a mass migration to other European nations of Turkish workers seeking higher wages.

But the costs of rejection could be even higher. Turkey “has done more than any other candidate country” to meet the EU’s admission criteria, notes Steven A. Cook, an expert on Turkish politics at the Council on Foreign Relations. Rejection could blunt the drive toward greater freedom and polarize the country over the value of alliance with the West, possibly encouraging the army to assert more control over political life -- all destabilizing outcomes in a dangerous corner of the world.

Rejecting Turkey also seems directly at odds with the broader European critique of the Bush doctrine in the Middle East. Many European leaders think Bush is wrong in arguing that forcibly replacing Saddam Hussein with an elected government in Iraq will trigger a chain of democracy dominoes. But if sticks don’t work, the only way to advance democratization in the Muslim world -- an outcome as much in Europe’s interest as America’s -- is with carrots.

Nothing could send a stronger signal to the Muslim world that democracy would be rewarded than providing Turkey the benefits of EU membership. Conversely, rejection would provide a powerful argument for Muslim extremists who insisted the West was bent on a clash of civilizations. Chirac acknowledged last week that the momentum toward Turkey’s admission “is now irreversible.” Yet even with the case so strong, he reflexively condemned Bush’s intervention.

Such petulance should caution those who assign Bush all the blame for the fraying of the Cold War-era alliances. Some of the hostility clearly seems personal. But last week suggested that European resistance extended beyond Bush’s style of leadership to the idea of American leadership itself. Reaching across the Atlantic, a President Kerry would probably find the water warmer, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t still be choppy.

Ronald Brownstein’s column appears every Monday. See current and past Brownstein columns at latimes.com/brownstein.