TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=91TT0199> <title> Jan. 28, 1991: Closing Ranks Behind The Yanks </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991 Jan. 28, 1991 War In The Gulf </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> THE GULF WAR, Page 67 THE EUROPEAN ALLIES Closing Ranks Behind the Yanks </hdr><body> When the bombs started falling, the British, French and Italians were there; others with a stake in the gulf stayed to the side By MICHAEL S. SERRILL--Reported by Daniel Benjamin/ Bonn, Frank Melville/London and Frederick Ungeheuer/Paris As the countdown to conflict began, U.S. commanders surveyed the coalition's order of battle with some trepidation. Certainly British forces would be in at the start, but who else would line up to fight? French air and land units were in place, but at the 11th hour President Francois Mitterrand had launched what looked like a misguided missile: a compromise that offered Saddam Hussein his coveted Middle East peace conference. Italy, Spain, Germany and Greece backed Mitterrand. Had Baghdad not spurned the French proposal, the Arab alliance members might have wavered too and deserted the anti-Iraq coalition. Only when conflict was clearly unavoidable did the Europeans close rank. Even then their show of support was unequal--some contributing far more than others--and that was likely to lead to later recriminations, within both Europe and the NATO alliance. In Paris the nine-nation Western European Union defense grouping gave rhetorical support to military action last week, but while British, French and Italian warplanes ran the gauntlet of Iraqi antiaircraft fire, other European nations with a stake in gulf stability stayed on the sidelines. Germany was particularly conspicuous by its absence in the gulf, even if it had a constitutional excuse for nonparticipation. Warned British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd: "This will weigh on U.S.-European relations for some time." On the home front, Europe, like the U.S., braced for terrorism. Armored vehicles took up positions around London's Heathrow Airport as part of a dramatic increase in security in the capital. Throughout Europe, security forces carrying automatic weapons patrolled government offices, airports, airline offices, train stations and bus terminals. Key potential targets such as U.S. embassies, cultural missions and military bases were heavily guarded; schools catering to American students were closed. At the exclusive resort of Marbella on Spain's Costa del Sol, police and private guards swarmed around the summer palace of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, transforming the oversize replica of the White House into an armed camp. "Marbella looks like a war zone," complained resident Nigel Bowden, a British writer. So did other parts of Europe, although, ironically, the belligerents were pacifists. While waiting for what many regarded as an inevitable Iraqi-instigated terror campaign in retaliation for the allied bombing in the gulf, security forces had their hands full keeping antiwar protesters in check. In the days before war began, and every day thereafter, tens of thousands of demonstrators, many of them students, took to the streets in Germany, France, Italy and other European countries. In Berlin they broke windows at the Grand Hotel and the French Cultural Center and hurled Molotov cocktails at a U.S. embassy annex. Even in Britain, where polls showed that the public supported gulf intervention by a 3-to-1 ratio, opponents of military action mounted antiwar demonstrations of an estimated 50,000 people. Beyond the rallies, however, there was never any doubt about Britain's resolve, even after Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was replaced in mid-crisis by John Major. In a rare show of unity last week, the opposition Labour Party endorsed the Conservative Prime Minister's handling of the crisis and helped pass what was in effect a declaration of war by a House of Commons vote of 534 to 55. "We will not flinch in the battle against evil," Major told the British people. "Over the months, we have worked for peace. And hoped for peace. But we are prepared for war." In France there was never such clear resolution. Much to the annoyance of the U.S. and Britain, Mitterrand pursued his separate peace plan down to the wire. Eager to protect French interests in the Arab world, he also sought to appease a population nervous about military involvement and France's 4 million-strong Arab immigrant community. His plan called for an Arab peacekeeping force to move into Kuwait in the wake of retreating Iraqi forces, which would be spared attack by coalition troops. It linked such a withdrawal to the convening of a U.N. Middle East conference to settle the Israeli-Arab conflict and the Palestinian problem. The majority of European Community members supported Paris' last-ditch effort, but it was opposed by the U.S. and Britain, which feared it would split the allies and let Saddam off the hook. In the end Baghdad brushed aside the French initiative, and less than 24 hours before hostilities began, the National Assembly voted overwhelmingly to support France's participation in armed intervention. Concluded Mitterrand: "Now arms will do the talking." It was an outcome Thatcher had foreseen as early as last August in the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion. Visiting George Bush in Aspen, Colo., the Iron Lady had predicted, "Mitterrand will give you trouble until the end, but when the ship sails, she [France] will be there." In Italy the decision was equally painstaking. It took an all-night emergency session, which ended 12 hours after the war started, for parliament to decide that its Tornado fighter-bombers deployed in the gulf since September should go into action against Iraq. Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti defended his decision to back the anti-Iraq coalition with vigor: "We cannot always demand that the Americans assume the entire burden of action." Accused of abetting a U.S. complot to safeguard cheap oil supplies, Andreotti shot back, "There was no oil to safekeep in Europe when the U.S. came here to fight and die as a decisive contribution in our liberation from the Nazi-Fascist dictatorship." With Britain, France and Italy aboard the war wagon, Germany was very much the odd man out. But with polls showing that 79% of the German people favored negotiations beyond the ultimate deadline, Chancellor Helmut Kohl concluded it was politically impossible for Bonn to go beyond supporting the coalition with cash, transportation aid and nonlethal supplies, such as poison-gas-detecting vehicles, to a total value of $2.2 billion. Even its stationing of 18 aging fighters in Turkey in fulfillment of NATO obligations has been widely criticized at home. Upon hearing news of the attack on Iraq, the Chancellor declared himself "deeply distressed." The Bundestag eventually passed a resolution of support for the U.S. and its European neighbors. "They have a right to our solidarity, and we stand by them," said Kohl. The failure to unite in the face of the gulf crisis, even behind a single peace plan, dismayed advocates of a more assertive Europe and cast doubt on the Community's ambitions to achieve "political union" and a Euro-defense strategy. "Fundamental forces are tearing at the European Community," said a senior U.S. official in Europe. "These strains will cause it to be taken less seriously as a united political force--by itself, by the U.S. and by others." Added Karl Kaiser, the director of Bonn's Foreign Policy Research Institute: "The E.C. is not available for out-of-Europe activities." What many Europeans, and particularly the Germans, do not understand, said Kaiser, is that "an international order under a United Nations mandate doesn't mean just resolutions. Under international law, force is legitimate." Were Europe, and in particular Germany, more assertive on the international stage, there would doubtless be protests from the very people hurling accusations of pusillanimity. But so far, the gulf crisis has shown that fortune favors the brave, and the laurels in the high-stakes enterprise of global leadership remain with the U.S. Seen just six months ago as a weak, declining power, Washington is attempting to pull a reluctant Europe into George Bush's new world order. The events in the gulf, says Pierre Dabezies, head of France's Foundation for National Defense Studies, reconfirm the U.S.'s new status "as the world's only remaining superpower--indeed, as its sole policeman." </body></article> </text>