Déjà Vu All Over Again

Most European diplomats and politicians believe that they were proved right in their skepticism of the Iraq invasion, and wonder why Americans like McCain don't see it that way. A new war would quash any hope of democratization in Iran. Former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer fears it would be a "cataclysm" for the Middle East after Iran responded by destabilizing Iraq or striking Israel. They suspect Americans of again being misled by émigré groups, as they were by Iraqi exiles in years past.

Europeans distrust the moralizing tone of American policy. They remember how President Bush threw down the gantlet over Iraq: "Those who are not for us are against us." Now comes McCain proclaiming that Iranian nuclear weapons are a "moral issue" on which we must be uncompromising. And not just Iran. McCain outlined an agenda reminiscent of the early days of the Bush administration. The overall imperative is to spread democracy. To that end we must increase U.S. troop numbers in Iraq, strengthen NATO forces in Afghanistan, force a halt to the slaughter in Darfur, press Putin's Russia on its domestic and international behavior, push for regime change in Belarus, stabilize the Balkans and expand the EU to include Turkey and Serbia, while extending NATO through Ukraine all the way to Georgia.

Also as before, Europeans fear Washington is forgoing diplomatic opportunities to resolve the Iran crisis. Every time one comes up, the Bush administration shoots it down. In 2003, Iran signaled its willingness to launch comprehensive talks on nuclear policy, Israel, the unfreezing of Iranian assets and the "Axis of Evil" designation--a policy agenda negotiated through back channels and, according to a senior Iranian official, still on the table. Flush from an apparent victory in Iraq, the United States not only declined the offer but criticized the Swiss diplomats who delivered it.

That deal may still be negotiable, Europeans say, and Washington should try. During her recent visit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was the model diplomat, getting chummy with W and expressing solidarity with U.S. efforts to pressure Iran. But her compatriots are franker. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier calls for direct U.S.-Iran talks. Even in Britain, America's traditional partner, politicians are openly skeptical. Lord William Wallace, foreign-policy spokesman for the British Liberal Democratic Party, warns of "suspicions over here that the Americans refuse to talk just because Iran has been the Great Satan since 1979." If the Americans precipitously strike Iran, he said after hearing McCain, it's possible that no European government, not even the British, would back them.

Hardly a transatlantic reconciliation.

Moravcsik is director of the European Union Program at Princeton University.

© 2006