Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2004, pages 35, 37

European Press Review

 

Turkey Attacks Show Middle East Violence “Has Now Moved to Europe”

 

By Lucy Jones

The twin suicide-bomb attacks on the British consulate and UK-based HSBC bank in Istanbul on Nov. 20 which killed 27 people left European editorial writers stunned. The bombings followed attacks on two Istanbul synagogues Nov. 15 which killed 23 people. Germany’s Nov. 21 Frankfurter Allgemeine editorialized that “sick brains follow a logic, however perverse it may be.” But the paper failed to see “any political logic” in the choice of Turkey. France’s Libération, however, pointed out the same day that Turkey is a secular democracy, a member of NATO and a European Union candidate. “In short,” the paper said, “it is a country that shares the values we uphold, the very same values abhorred by Islamic fanaticism.” Wrote Poland’s Trybuna of Nov. 21, “Terrorists clearly wanted to undermine the prestige of Britain, a close U.S. ally in the war in Iraq.”

The Nov. 23 Sunday Times in London, attempting to explain why terrorism has come to be the “grim spectre of our times,” cited claims made by Development Secretary Clare Short that “Britain and America are reaping what they sowed in Iraq.” There was a second interpretation of events, the newspaper went on to say: “that the military action taken by Britain and America to overthrow Saddam Hussain is part of the wider war on terror and its state sponsors and is a solution to the problem, not its cause.” It added, “Tragically, many more Muslims have died than Westerners, although al-Qaeda cares not a jot.”

Newspapers debated the response to the apparent flourishing of terror. As Sweden’s Aftonbladet said Nov. 18, after the synagogue attacks, the “chaos of the Middle East has now moved to Europe.” Germany’s Berliner Zeitung of Nov. 22 warned against a strategy focusing exclusively on the use of force to fight terrorism. “As everyone knows,” the paper said, “the more brutal the enemy, the more important it becomes not just to hit back but to consider how to respond.” Switzerland’s Le Temps on the same day also saw shortcomings in making force the sole response. U.S. and British leaders, the paper said, “must bow to the evidence that the use of military force alone leads up a blind alley,” the newspaper said. The Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano editorialized on Nov. 22 that peace would be realized through “a strategy of justice and peace” to uphold “the values of respect for life, observance of the law, and solidarity among all men.”

 

Spain’s El Periodico Calls Bush’s UK Trip “Justification of Failure”

President George W. Bush began his four-day state visit to Britain Nov. 18, against a backdrop of anti-war protests and the suicide attacks in Istanbul. During the trip, said the London Times on Nov. 22, there was a discernible stiffening of resolve to “do whatever is necessary to secure Iraq,” and discussion of strategies for new self-government in the country. The newspaper noted that as Bush returned to Washington from a land of press conference questions on the lines of “Mr. President, why do you think so many people hate you?” he could [hardly?] be pleased with his visit. Many people, the newspaper explained, “were surprised to find a politician more intellectually agile, self-deprecating and even warm than the image they had formed of him.” This, the paper noted, would “help Mr. Blair,” presumably to justify Britain’s involvement in Iraq.

The UK’s Guardian, however, was less impressed. Before Bush arrived, the newspaper recalled on Nov. 22, there was hope of some U.S. response to London’s concerns on British prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, the Middle East peace process and the building of Iraq. “At the end of the week, however, what is there to show for it?” the paper asked. “Not a great deal so far…Confronted with the Istanbul rubble…it is only too easy to see the ways in which our national interests are now worse off than they were.”

The Financial Times of Nov. 21 thought Bush and Blair still seem “perilously distant from a coherent response” in Iraq, and hoped that the two leaders might pull together, work out a better solution for Iraq, resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and usher in a “new international settlement.”

Barcelona’s El Periodico of the same day wrote that “the presidential trip to London to celebrate victory in Iraq has converted into a justification of failure.”

 

Italy “Overwhelmed by sadness” After Nasiriya bombing

The devastating Nov. 12 suicide bomb attack on a police station in the southern Iraqi town of Nasiriya which killed at least 26 people, including 18 Italians, was described by Italy’s L’Unita the next day as “the most serious attack since World War II” on Italian armed forces. Turin’s La Stampa of the same day reported President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi’s condolences to the families of the dead soldiers and his pledge that Italy would continue its mission in Iraq, despite what he called a “despicable act of terrorism.”

Switzerland’s Le Temps of Nov. 13 spoke of an Italy ”overwhelmed by sadness” as the details and the identities of the victims gradually became known. Germany’s Nov. 13 Der Tagesspiegel expressed the hope that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi would resist public pressure to pull the Italian troops out. The newspaper was surprised at his decision to commit troops to Iraq in the first place, as “he is usually guided by the latest opinion polls.” Nevertheless, the paper editorialized, “We hope he will hold out.”

Austria’s Die Presse of Nov. 13 predicted that the shock the attack provoked in Italy may soon turn into anger against the prime minister. Berlusconi, the newspaper wrote, “is politically responsible for the unpopular deployment in Iraq and thus for the soldiers’ deaths, and voters will make him feel it.”

In Germany, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said the same day that the suicide bombing opens “a new level of escalation” in the guerrilla war. “The attackers will have considered the effects on public opinion in Italy,” the paper noted, “which was not in favor of the war and which will now ask whether this sacrifice is justified.” In Spain—a staunch ally of the U.S. with its own forces on the ground—La Vanguardia of Nov. 13 ran the headline “Italy receives the deadliest blow in Iraq,” and said the situation in Iraq is going “from bad to worse.”

 

France Fears Western Defeat in Iraq, Says Le Figaro

On Nov. 13 France—which was the leading voice in opposing the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq—called for a change of approach there which would give Iraqis themselves responsibility for law and order. The following day, noting that “a change of tone” could be detected in Paris, in the face of what it called “growing disquiet at the difficulties facing the coalition troops,” Le Figaro editorialized that: “Far from rejoicing at having been right to oppose the Anglo-American intervention against Saddam Hussain, the French leaders are now fearful of the consequences of a defeat for the West in Iraq.” The view in Paris, the paper explained, is that “further destabilization in the Middle East, an encouragement to the Islamist extremists and a recrudescence of international terrorism would be as serious a threat to French interests as to American ones.” Observed the paper, “The stalemate in which the U.S. finds itself in Iraq has encouraged French diplomacy to ‘proffer a hand’ to the Americans.”

Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on the same day urged Washington to forget past differences and accept France’s offer of cooperation through the United Nations to help stabilize Iraq. “The transfer of power to Iraqi bodies is the logical political prospect,” it agreed, but those who “came as liberators but are nevertheless occupiers” remain responsible for security in the country.

 

Iraq “Another Afghanistan"

The day following the Nov. 2 downing of a Chinook helicopter in Iraq which claimed the lives of 16 Americans, Germany’s Die Welton issued an appeal for solidarity with the U.S. “Americans are paying with blood in Iraq,” said the newspaper’s lead editorial. Despite widespread opposition in Germany to the U.S.-led invasion, the country “should be sensitive and intelligent enough to stand alongside America in Iraq,” the paper continued, reminding readers of the U.S. role in the liberation of Germany and Europe from Nazi rule. The same day’s Neue Osnabrucker wondered how long it would be before Bush cracked and engineered a pullout.

However, Italy’s La Stampa of Nov. 3 disagreed with the common assertion that Iraq is becoming another Vietnam. To the contrary, the paper argued, it’s turning into “another Afghanistan,” becoming a base for terrorists after the U.S. invasion, much as Afghanistan did following the Soviet Union’s ill-fated decade of occupation following its 1979 invasion.

Lucy Jones is a free-lance journalist based in London.

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