 |
| Volume IX, December 2002, Number 4 |
| |
| INTRODUCTION: Elusive Partnership: U.S. and European Policies in the Near East and the Gulf (Executive Summary) |
| |
The following is the executive summary of a September 2002 joint policy paper by the Atlantic Council of the United States (ACUS) and the German Marshall Fund of the United States, with an updated introduction by Christopher Makins, president of ACUS.
INTRODUCTION
The report, Elusive Partnership: U.S. and European Policies in the Near East and the Gulf, was coauthored by seven recognized U.S. experts on Middle East and transatlantic issues and published by the Atlantic Council of the United States and the German Marshall Fund of the United States in September 2002. The authors were Rita Hauser, J. Robinson West, Marc C. Ginsberg, Geoffrey Kemp, Craig Kennedy, Christopher J. Makins and James Steinberg. The report was substantially based on a series of in-depth discussions with European governmental and non-governmental leaders in mid-July that were intended to explore the possibilities for more cooperative and complementary policies among the transatlantic countries.
Since the report was published there have been important changes both in U.S. and European policies and in the situation in the region. On the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the United States has recently offered a road map that responds in some measure to the report’s call for a comprehensive U.S. approach to the issue, although recent developments in both Israel and the West Bank have made the political prospects, notably in terms of Palestinian reform, even more uncertain. On Iraq, the United States committed itself on September 12 to pursuing a path of action through the United Nations, as called for in the report. However, the course of the German election campaign and the prolonged French opposition to the approach advocated by the United States in the Security Council have made the common European policy urged in the report as a basis for closer transatlantic cooperation illusory, at least for the foreseeable future.
On other issues, the prospects for the report's recommendations are less clear. On Iran, the European Union is pursuing its conditional engagement policy, and there have been indications that the U.S. administration recognizes that in the event of a military action in Iraq it will need both to understand and to take greater account of Iranian interests in the future security of the region. In terms of broader regional development, the U.N. Arab Human Development Report, around which the recommendations in Elusive Partnership are built, is evidently being intensively studied as a possible basis for international action.
But the crux of the report's recommendations -- the need for a more intensive dialogue across the Atlantic on the problems of the region -- remains as urgent as ever. The tensions that have developed among the United States, France and Germany on these issues and the separate course adopted by Britain leave the transatlantic partners as far away as ever from the concerted or at least complementary approaches that would, in the report's view, best serve their purposes. While the obstacles may in some ways be greater now than in the past, the recommendation that all concerned look for ways to intensify and deepen their dialogue remains as crucial as it was in early September.
For the full report, click here.
|
| |
|
