Powell's Middle East mission widely recognised as a poisoned chalice

WORLD VIEW: The Middle East has both the capacity to rupture EU-US relations and develop the European security regime

It has been a topsy-turvy couple of weeks for European relations with the United States, as the Middle East crisis deepened and seemed to be going beyond international control.

Two images stand out from these events. On April 3rd Mr Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, said in public what many European leaders say privately: "It is clear American mediation efforts have failed, and we need new mediation" before the Israeli-Palestinian conflict turns into full-scale regional war. He called on the US to step aside as primary peacekeeper to allow a broad alliance of countries mediate a ceasefire and a durable peace agreement.

The next day President Bush made his major speech on the Middle East, calling for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, an end to Palestinian terrorism and launching a US initiative in which the Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, was dispatched to the region.

The second image is of Mr Powell in Madrid on Wednesday, one week after Mr Prodi's remarks, flanked by the EU's foreign and security affairs chief, Mr Javier Solana, the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, the Russian foreign minister, Mr Igor Ivanov. In a joint declaration they demanded "immediate" Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian cities, declared Mr Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority legitimate and called on him to dismantle terrorist infrastructures and anti-semitic incitement.

Is this a recognition of Mr Prodi's frustration, a new US commitment to a multilateral approach - or a tactical shift to deal with a crisis impeding a larger US objective: toppling the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein? What does it tell us about the future course of transatlantic relations?

An interesting perspective on such questions was provided in Dublin this week by Prof Steve Smith of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, an expert on international security.

He told his audience at the Dublin European Institute of UCD that the evidence points to a reaffirmation of US unilateralism in recent months, rather than to a victory for the multilateralists within the Bush administration led by Mr Powell, following the necessary resort to a strategic coalition after September 11th.

The plan to attack Iraq, the Nuclear Posture Review naming several non-nuclear states as possible targets, Bush's "axis of evil" speech, the 30 per cent steel tariffs and the 14 per cent increase in US military budgets all point in this direction, he argued. In conventional terms this represents a classical unipolar moment, with the US as the leading global power, capable of projecting force throughout the world to an unprecedented degree.

But he cautioned that military dominance is now less useful than it used to be as a means of exercising dominance. A new book by Joseph Nye, a leading Harvard scholar of the US's international role, distinguishes between the several chessboards on which the US has to play.

The military one accounts for perhaps 20 per cent of its power - the classic hard security resource on which the Bush administration's unilateralists rely. The so-called revolution in military affairs using high technology has dramatically widened the gap between US and allied capacities, making inter-operability more difficult - hence the increasing US disenchantment with NATO.

But Mr Nye says there are two further "soft" chessboards in play, which cater for 80 per cent of international power. On the economic one it is a multipolar world, in which the EU now equals or surpasses the US, while Japan, Asia and China are also major players. Beyond that, the sphere of transnational relations, including political values, culture, international organisations and migration is much more widely dispersed. Military dominance cannot guarantee that you get your way in these other spheres.

Prof Smith said the key question is how the US will relate its soft to its hard power in coming years. If it is prepared to listen to its allies and take account of its partners its international predominance would be prolonged. This would recognise that it cannot go it alone, but must work with other states and societies.

Alternatively, the exercise of unilateral military power, say to topple Saddam Hussein, may be relatively easily accomplished; but rebuilding Iraq would require a major international effort over many years. The same point applies to terrorism. The worst scenario would see an attack on Iraq mounted before the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved. The conservative Arab states have made it quite clear they will not support that, for fear of popular revolt against them.

Rumblings of oil sanctions recall the oil crises of the 1970s and their huge impact on the world economy.

All of this has grave implications for European relations with the US in coming years. Prof Smith cautioned that in the security domain the EU is more a label than an actor, since it has little competence in military affairs. But that could well change in respect of regional peacekeeping and peacemaking tasks, where hard and soft security is combined. There is nothing natural or eternal about the existing pattern of transatlantic relations, which have been built up in very specific historical circumstances after 1945 and have gradually changed since 1989. Political and moral choices made will changes such structures.

Among the neuralgic points determining this evolution Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict loom very large. Mr Powell's current mission is widely recognised as a poisoned chalice in Washington, where the two major factions in US foreign policy struggle to exert dominance.

The Middle East has the capacity both to rupture EU-US relations and develop the European security regime. In Brussels observers compare it to the Balkans crisis 10 years ago and ask if Europe will be similarly humiliated by failing to act.

They say the major question facing the international community now is how to constrain US power. That is best done by reinforcing global multilateralism and the rule of law and projecting the EU's dialogic approach to difference on a world scale.

It has many comparative advantages, after all, in the 80 per cent of the "soft security" sphere that determines international power relations.

Engels defined anti-semitism as the "socialism of fools". A US socialist has aptly referred to the recent growth of anti-Americanism as the "anti-imperialism of fools".

Europeans anxious about recent events should realise how much will depend on the outcome of the struggle between these tendencies within the Bush administration and in US politics. That is why Mr Powell received such a welcome in Madrid. But the jury is still very much out on whether he will get his way.