The attempt to involve NATO in logistical planning for the defence of Turkey against possible Iraqi attack has exposed once again raw nerves in transatlantic relations.
By invoking the NATO Treaty's Article 5 obligation on members to regard an attack on one as an attack on all, the US and Turkey have sought, some say, to involve NATO implicitly in preparations for war. It was a step too far for France and Belgium who blocked action with German support.
In response Turkey exercised its right under Article 4, for the first time in NATO's history, to convene an emergency meeting of members, but failed to break the deadlock. The meeting reconvenes today.French officials said it was too early to start military preparations while diplomatic efforts to avoid war continued. They insisted they would help the Turks if they judged it necessary. "If Turkey was really under threat, France would be one of the first at its side," Defence Minister, Ms Michele Alliot-Marie, said. "Today we don't feel that threat is there."
But the move prompted the US ambassador to NATO, Mr Nicholas Burns, to warn that "NATO is now facing a crisis of credibility." The US Secretary of Defence, Mr Don Rumsfeld, went further: "Shameful, for me it's truly shameful. Turkey is an ally. An ally that is risking everything ... How can you refuse it help?"
The diplomatic hiccup will scarcely delay efforts by the US, working through bilateral contacts, to reinforce Turkey's defences with Patriot anti-missile batteries, early-warning aircraft, and chemical/biological protection units. But it has more potential to create lasting damage to NATO than any argument since the dispute over the deployment of Pershing cruise missiles in the 1980s. In particular it is likely to reinforce an American public's sense of the "unreliability" of its "old" Europe allies and the administration's barely-concealed distaste for multilateral forums such as the UN, and now NATO.
Turkey, which itself has to deal with a public opinion strongly opposed to assisting a US-led assault on Iraq, is expected to approve later this month the deployment of thousands of US troops to its southern border, which could form a secondary, northern front against Iraq.
The NATO dispute also has interesting resonances for Ireland's own neutrality debate in the context of the Convention on the Future of Europe. Those anxious to persuade this State to sign up to a "simple" EU Article 5 pledge to defend other member states if they are attacked now face a much stickier wicket. If an Article 5 commitment means more than a willingness to act purely defensively, and can be taken to include preparing a fellow member state for the consequences of an act of war on its own part, whether sanctioned by the UN or not, then surely it is a different class of animal. The line between defence and offence is blurred, and the principle confused.