Cosmos and chaos revisited: can the EU persuade Bush to step back from the brink?

Date: 05/09/02

One year on from 11 September, the EU is faced with stark choices as the US prepares for a possible strike on Iraq, threatening to inflame the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the process. Michael Emerson hopes that sound policy judgement will prevail.

AS THE world returns from its holidays on the eve of the first anniversary of 11 September, what world is it returning to?

Circumstances remind me now of the late 1990s when the expression 'cosmos and chaos' was coined. The concern then was for the state of the post-Communist transition in Eastern Europe. The argument was that where there was little or no perspective of accession to the EU, the transition could degenerate into the chaos and violence of the failed state.

Evidence was seen in the erratic leadership of President Yeltsin in his last years of office leading to the Russian financial crash of 1998, as well as the endemic lawlessness and corruption of most of Eastern Europe, and the spread of ethno-mafioso-secessionist conflicts in the Caucasus and Balkans.

What happened to this cosmos and chaos (Mark I)? Russia decided to stop the rot at home, and elected a sober and effective new president. The EU enlargement process held together, with the prospect now of a big bang lined up for Copenhagen in December. The war over Kosovo in 1999 marked the turning point for the Balkans. After the US had bombed out Milosevic, integration into the EU for the whole of the region became the only game in town.

It seems that equilibrating mechanisms came into play. 11 September ratified the process, following Bush's edict 'you are with us or against us' in the hunt for Bin Laden 'dead or alive'. Putin was with us, the US and Europe, immediately. Turkey, after a year hovering on the edges of cosmos and chaos, now makes a huge, even desperate, effort to join cosmos since it vividly sees the alternative to be chaos.

The prospect of a cosmos and chaos Mark II, this time in the Arab world, although pre-figured in Huntington's clash of civilisations, was not immediately apparent after 11 September. The defeat of the Taliban went extraordinarily well, politically in terms of transatlantic solidarity as well as militarily.

But as Washington debated how to follow through there emerged a parting of the ways in the cosmos, with serious transatlantic disarray over the next steps in the Middle East, both over the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the planned but undecided US strike against Iraq.

Moreover, these Middle East disagreements only add to the list of unilateralist actions of the Bush administration (climate change, International Criminal Court etc) that have deeply upset Europe.

Theoreticians of the world order join in to confirm the story. Can the cosmos hold together?

For years, Europe has been recognised as a post-modern order, compared to the old nation state, of which the US remains representative. This summer Robert Kagan has brought the story up-to-date after 11 September, in a brilliant but questionable article, arguing that the US and EU may even come from different planets, the former from Mars and the latter from Venus1.

Francis Fukuyama, impertinent author of The End of History in 1992, is obliged to confess that 'the West may be cracking'2.

Is there now chaos in the cosmos? Or is it just a healthy debate among democracies? The essential issue is the Middle East. The US has seemed inclined towards fixing Iraq first, and maybe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict later.

Such a policy seems to be shaped by a coalition of ideologies and factions: the new conservative right of the Pentagon, the broader unilateralist instincts of the administration, the old Israeli lobby now in alliance with the new Christian fundamentalist right in Congress, the political fusion or confusion of the global terrorism of al-Qaeda with the local terrorism of Hamas, and the new emotional commitment of the American people to do whatever it takes to 'defeat terror'.

With this alliance of ideologies, interests and popular sentiment, an early attack on Iraq has seemed to be set on automatic pilot.

In Europe it is widely held that the reverse strategy would be a better idea, namely fixing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict first, and maybe Iraq later.

As the summer progressed deep fissures became apparent in Washington, as hearings in the Senate in early August showed. The arguments questioning the 'strike Iraq first' plan are:

• An attack on Iraq before settling the Israel-Palestine conflict would further inflame the Arab world, playing into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists, who not only sympathise with al-Qaeda, but also stand ready to overthrow the conservative Arab regimes in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The Arab world could become the real empire of chaos.
• An attack on Iraq might actually trigger the use of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein in a last act of desperation, perhaps against Israel, an outcome which is precisely the opposite of what the strategists want to achieve.
• Amid the chaos, Israel could be tempted to go for the final ('transfer' or expulsion) solution to the Palestinian problem, which according to the recent Jaffee Centre opinion poll is currently supported by 46 of the population. This would be a huge new factor of escalation.

One or more of these developments could lead to a new oil shock hitting the stagnant Western economy, just as policy-makers are struggling to manage its recovery. Even the uncertainty can hit the economy hard. The inter-civilisational tensions between the West and Islam would increasingly poison relations inside Europe between the Christian majority and Muslim minorities.

Maybe political debate will allow sound policy judgement to prevail. Maybe the US in the end joins with the EU, Russia and the moderate Arabs to press for a fundamental solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, with two states, a reasonable map and decent deal for the refugees.

Maybe this leads to normalisation between Israel and much of the Arab world.

Perhaps the Iraq regime collapses in due course with continued policies of containment, without the B-52 treatment.

Will the wise conclusions be drawn before, or only after, the chaos in the cosmos produces disastrous results?

One lesson of the story could be that deep fissures in the cosmos are not sustainable. Equilibrating forces could work again. The US shies away from decisions that risk a colossal blunder operationally, quite apart from losing its allies.

The EU for its part draws the conclusion that it must indeed strengthen its voice and act in international affairs. The allies converge again after toying with chaos in the cosmos. We are not on different planets after all. Maybe cosmos and chaos Mark II (of the Arab world) will also be averted, but the cosmos had to have the chaos staring in front of its eyes, before deciding otherwise.

By Christmas we shall learn which our leaders choose.

1 'Power and Weakness', in Policy Review, June-July 2002.

2 International Herald Tribune, 9 August.

• Michael Emerson is senior research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels. www.ceps.be.

Major analysis feature. One year on from 11 September 2001, the EU is faced with stark choices as the US prepares for a possible strike on Iraq, threatening to inflame the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the process. Author hopes that sound policy judgment will prevail.

http://www.ceps.be http://www.ceps.be

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