Europe has vested historical, economic and
geopolitical interests in the region, unlike America.
Persistent, unmitigated support for the USA in spite of French-German
exhortations will jeopardize the new and aspiring members' position in
an enlarged EU. Accession is irreversible but they can find themselves
isolated and marginalized in decision making processes and dynamics
long after the Iraqi dust has settled. EU officials already gave public
warnings to this effect.
It is grave error to assume that France and Germany have lost their
pivotal role in the EU. Britain and Spain are second rank members -
Britain by Europhobic choice and Spain because it is too small to
really matter. Russia - a smooth operator - chose to side with France
and Germany, at least temporarily. The new and aspiring members would
have done well to follow suit.
Instead, they have misconstrued the signs of the gathering storm: the
emerging European rapid deployment force and common foreign policy; the
rapprochement between France and Germany at the expense of the
pro-American but far less influential Britain, Italy and Spain; the
constitutional crisis setting European federalists against traditional
nationalists; the growing rupture between "Old Europe" and the American
"hyperpower".
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