“Iraq, Israel, Palestine, from despair to madness?” That’s the headline of an article signed by Robert Malley, former special adviser to Clinton and now director of the Middle-East programme of the International Crisis Group, that appears in the French daily Le Monde of 19/11. “A trio of common principles is applicable to the two crises: return or access to sovereignty, strong international military and political presence, consultation of the people in general elections”, points out Malley, who suggests to the USA to “patiently put together a coalition composed of Republicans and Democrats around some central ideas: the unilateral and prolonged occupation of Iraq is jeopardizing the stability of this country and the security of the USA; the long-term duration of the Arab-Israeli conflict is destroying American credibility, jeoparidizing the viability of territorial redistribution, and running terrible risks for the Palestinians, but also for the very survival of a Jewish State, and only an international intervention can be the natural solution to prevent disaster”. “America and all her allies seem to be bogged down in a war that isn’t going well”, says Jonathan Power, commentator of the international daily published in New York, the Herald Tribune, in its edition of 19/11. Power reviews the world political and economic balance of power after the cold war, and concludes: “if we are honest, all this offers Bush the chance to use one of the main weapons at his disposal, which is that of American foreign policy”. The Spanish daily El Mundo of 17/11 also analyses the US situation in view of the campaign for the presidential elections in 2004. “Relations between the USA and Europe are not good writes Moisés Naim, director of the Foreign Policy review in Washington -, and the combination of a strong euro and the American electoral campaign will not help to improve them. But in spite of the fact that they are overloaded with tensions, reciprocal resentments and misunderstandings, relations between the USA and Europe must seek a space between the three central issues that will dominate the electoral campaign in 2004: employment, lies and the victims of war”. According to Naim “in spite of the fact that the US economy is growing rapidly, it is failing to produce jobs at a pace sufficient to eliminate unemployment. The fact that the Bush government may have deliberately exaggerated the threat of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction will be another inevitable issue, accompanied by the denunciation of the growth in the number of victims among US military forces in Iraq”. If Bush is re-elected, concludes Naim, “he will have to adopt policies very different from those of his first term”. The Iraqi conflict and the state funerals of the Italian victims at Nassiriya are variously commented on by the German press. “ The third way for Baghdad“, in the view of the Süddeutsche Zeitung (19/11) “ passes through the United Nations“. The UNO “ must concentrate on legitimization, an advisory role and the control of the process of the handing over of authority [to the Iraqis]. The main burden of the operations remains, however, in the hands of the Americans: that is only right. In the last analysis it is they who assumed the responsibility“. The UNO represents, in the view of Dietmar Ostermann of the Frankfurter Rundschau (19/11), “ the last risky possibility” of finding a solution to the Iraqi crisis: “ Now, the signal that Washington has understood how important the political legitimization of any new government in Baghdad is for the Iraqis is coming directly from the US Secretary of State himself. We must not deceive ourselves. In Iraq not even the UNO can work miracles; it was already targeted by assassins in August“. “ Since last Wednesday, the angels of peace have been forced to feel and behave like soldiers at the front“, writes Roman Arens commenting on the attack on the Italian contingent in Iraq. “ The shock for the risks of a presumed ‘humanitarian mission ‘ in the midst of a war has not changed the views of the Italians“, who continue “ to reject the war in Iraq by a majority of some 60% “. “ Those killed at Nassiriya were clearly the victims of a fatal misunderstanding: while the carabinieri were glad to be filmed by television crews at the side of children, and deceived themselves into thinking they were benevolent keepers of the peace in a kind of Sicilian playground, their enemies, whom they had refused to recognise, conducted themselves on the basis of the bloody laws of war“. “ The country is in a state of shock“, comments the weekly Der Spiegel (17/11). “ And the authorities are confused“. ———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1250 N.ro relativo : 80 Data pubblicazione : 21/11/2003
