News Analysis: A chance for Bush to up ante on war in Iraq IHT

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

DO NOTE :  "the United States can now once again ask what sacrifices  
in the area of cash and civil liberties can be made by its " DJF


News Analysis: A chance for Bush to up ante on war in Iraq
By John Vinocur International Herald Tribune
FRIDAY, JULY 8, 2005

The last time Europe and America were tested by the horror of Islamic  
terrorism, their response varied from doing nothing to a confounding  
decision by the newly elected Socialist government of Spain to pull  
its forces out of Iraq.

Whether it was sitting tight or performing exactly as the authors of  
the murderous train bombings in Madrid in March 2004 might have  
hoped, the community of civilized nations basically turned away from  
upping the ante.

This time, with the London bombings deliberately juxtaposed by the  
terrorists against the Group of 8 meeting in Scotland and its group  
picture of democratic leaders standing in supposed solidarity behind  
Prime Minister Tony Blair, the shame of leaving things at more  
reprobation and verbal response might be seen by many as insufferable.

The circumstances brutally pair the possibility of action with the  
chance that the traditional reflex of such international meetings  
dominates, and the participants issue a forgettable communiqué and go  
home.

But the choice this time will not only write in red just how much  
resolve there is in places like France and Germany to deal with  
terrorism through deeper, riskier engagement. It will also make clear  
how much the United States and Britain are willing to intensify their  
fight in Iraq.

The issue is Iraq - because antiterrorist operational cooperation  
works seemingly well among the Western players, including Russia. If  
German and Dutch courts have repeatedly and despairingly allowed  
suspected terrorists to go free, the G-8 partners regularly (and  
honestly enough) repeat how remarkably they function together.

Iraq and the United States sit at the heart of the matter because the  
Bush administration's policy of spreading democracy globally and  
reshaping the Middle East is the vessel of change that the Islamists  
so hate.


If President George W. Bush sought to demonstrate immediately that  
terrorism could not prevail - a certain line in any summit communiqué  
- his most convincing response to the London bombings might well be  
an announcement that the United States would dramatically increase  
its troop strength in Iraq, where terrorism, with vast margins of  
impunity, exercises its barbarity daily.

A former Bush White House security-policy officialsaid there would be  
no way to mobilize a stronger European involvement on any aspect of  
the terrorist threat "if we're fuzzy and appear to be doing Iraq on  
the cheap."

He said of the United States: "It had better hurry up in sending more  
troops to Iraq, explain the strategy not in terms of a 'war on  
terror' but as war on terrorists, and describe it as a generational  
effort which now demands sacrifices beyond an all-volunteer force of  
lower middle-class people sent off to fight.

"Like it or not, Europe keys off the U.S. on strategic thinking. The  
tendency will be for some to think of the United States as a  
dangerous friend. But our common enemies are more dangerous."


In the current situation, if Bush is ready to reinforce the American  
role fighting terrorism on the ground in Iraq, the United States can  
now once again ask what sacrifices in the area of cash and civil  
liberties can be made by its G-8 counterparts.

Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany, facing defeat by the  
conservatives in elections in September, and stuck with an  
increasingly left-oriented campaign platform, cannot be expected to  
offer anything like a surprise turnabout going beyond his country's  
present willingness to help train Iraq's security forces outside  
Iraqi territory.

But Jacques Chirac, his popularity decimated at home, and faced with  
two possible years of humiliation as a lame-duck president before  
elections in 2007, could find the situation one in which a strong  
gesture of antiterrorist solidarity might help right his situation,  
turning an international vision of France from a self-involved nation  
in decline to one re-defining itself as a global player.

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