Political phase in Afghanistan conflict tops agenda

A week of dramatic military change in Afghanistan puts the next, political, phase of the conflict urgently in the international agenda. If the country is not to disintegrate into another civil war drawing in neighbouring states it will be necessary to install an effective multinational security force and a transitional political authority. Both of these should be endorsed by the UN Security Council if they are to be legitimate.

Thus the outcome of the US-led military operation raises acutely once again the balance between the unilateralist and multilateralist strands in the Bush administration's foreign policy.

Speaking in Dublin yesterday at the Royal Irish Academy's annual conference on international affairs, Brian Cowen took this up. Arguing that the September 11th attacks had a "profound and lasting effect on the US and its foreign policy" he welcomed the renewed US interest in the UN; payment of its arrears to the world body; the focus on building an international coalition and deepening co-operation with the EU, and the reopening of western relations with states such as Iran and Syria.

These trends point to a "more engaged and multilateral" US policy than could have been hoped before September 11th, despite continuing doubts and suspicions, Mr Cowen said. Greater EU cohesion in support of the US and in pursuit of its own foreign policy agenda on the Middle East, with Russia and in developing the Rapid Reaction Force strengthen the EU with Washington.

Transatlantic tension on these issues should not be overstated; but neither should the continuing doubts and suspicions be overlooked. How they work out will have a profound influence on the shape of world politics. As Mr Cowen put it, we ignore international affairs at our peril.

This week the World Trade Organisation agreed to launch a new trade round in Doha, Qatar, despite sharp US-EU disagreement on farm export subsidies. A compromise formula brokered by Pascal Lamy and Robert Zoellick symbolised the co-operative side of the transatlantic relationship. So did the agreement reached by Presidents Bush and Putin on reducing their nuclear weapons, despite continuing disagreement on missile defence systems.

The deployment of British, French and German troops along with US ones in Afghanistan asserts their interests in being involved as well as their solidarity with the Americans. This will have to be reflected in the UN resolution endorsing a force, which is likely to include troops from Muslim powers such as Turkey and Indonesia. It must be calibrated with an agreed UN formula on a transitional administration and on massive humanitarian aid. The US will insist on the right to pursue the chief suspects of the September 11th attacks, Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation.

At the conference in Dublin yesterday Joan Hoff of the University of Ohio said that while undoubtedly September 11th has transformed the Bush presidency it is not likely that it has transformed US foreign policy.

Mr Bush is still surrounded by Cold Warriors from the 1980s who still believe (with the possible exception of Colin Powell) "the United States should act unilaterally whenever possible and co-operate only when absolutely necessary". She argued that the US may be using the rhetoric about multilateralism at the moment, but will revert to its traditional unilateralism once this crisis subsides.

John Peterson from the University of Glasgow, argued that Europe's generally united response is likely to encourage greater willingness in Washington to listen to the EU on issues such as Kyoto and biological weapons.

But if US forces in the Balkans are redeployed to Afghanistan the EU's ambitious political commitment to a European Security and Defence Policy is likely to be "exposed as barren". He thinks differing EU and US views on the relative salience of values and geopolitics in international affairs are unlikely to converge as a result of the crisis.

Even if they do not converge they may become more equal. This is surely the crux of the matter. It encompasses not only security and political affairs but economic ones as well. The dollar strengthened this week against the euro on the news from Afghanistan and in response to further evidence of sluggish EU growth.

Too much attention has been paid to the relative values of the dollar and the euro, not enough to the profound political, economic and institutional changes that will follow the new currency's introduction on January 1st.

Similarly, the announcement this week that the EU is on course for a "big bang" enlargement to take in 10 accession states by 2004 reminds us that the political debate on how best to ensure the larger Union is coherent and effective is becoming both urgent and practical. The events since September 11th underline that this debate in concerned as much with the EU's external as internal relations, the most important of which are with the US.

pgillespie@irish-times.ie

The Vincent Browne Interview has been held over for space reasons