http://www.japantimes.com/cgi-bin/geted.pl5?eo20040429dh.htm By DAVID HOWELL LONDON -- Commentators on both sides of the Atlantic have been raising the possibility of a split between Britain and America on the handling of Middle Eastern affairs. If this is really occurring, it would of course be a very serious blow to the United States and to President George W. Bush, personally. Britain has been much the most loyal and robust of his European allies. If the split is supposed to be between Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, then the analysis is plain wrong. The two leaders remain locked together in the conviction that they are engaged in "a historic struggle" ( Blair's words) to carry freedom and democracy to the turbulent Arab world and that this is America's and Britain's mission (Bush's phrase). If the split is supposed to be between the British people and Americans, that hardly exists either. The British share none of the French hostility toward things American or toward the great republic generally. Memories of wartime links remain strong even after half a century, and broad admiration of American liberty and genius remain undiminished. But if it is a matter of comparing the British public's attitudes not with those of Americans in general but specifically with those of Bush and the coterie around him, then talk of a real gap opening up is much nearer the mark. To put it bluntly the British public is getting more and more uneasy about Bush's handling of both Iraq and Palestine, and about the near-messianic language emerging from Washington to justify it all. In Iraq, the Americans have clearly made a catalog of errors, beginning with the fatal decision to disband the previous Iraqi armed forces, continuing with the failure provide enough troops on the ground and the use of excessively heavy-handed tactics, and culminating in the bombardment of Fallujah. The British occupying forces have taken a quite different approach, based partly on lessons from errors in Iraq in the distant past. Admittedly, conditions in their region, around Basra and in southern Iraq, are very much less difficult than in Baghdad. Even in Basra, though, there have been terrible bombing atrocities recently. Still, the principle is clear: that the Shiite majority are the key and that Shiite leaders are the ones with whom to work with maximum patience and respect. To lose their support would be fatal. If this means handing Iraq over after June 30 to some kind of semi-theocratic state, so be it. To expect such a government to be a clone or stooge of the ayatollahs next door in Iran would be quite mistaken. To British eyes and ears, the Americans appear not to have read the history books. However great the provocation -- and it has been intense -- the right response is not to shell mosques or step up violence. Acting on the doctrine of overwhelming force, in which the American military leaders have been encouraged to believe, just does not work. The doubts grow even stronger when it comes to the other major hot spot, the Israeli-Palestine dispute. Sympathy with the need for Israel to defend itself against the bottomless evil of the killing of women and children by suicide bombers is strong. But when it comes to endorsing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's policies, as the American president has now openly done, the sympathy evaporates. The latest Sharon plan is to evacuate the Gaza Strip, leaving a sort of ministate there, while continuing to maintain large settlements in the West Bank area between Israel and the Jordan, which the Palestinians view as their state and their future homeland. The clear signal to even the most moderate Palestinians who deplore the violence as much as the Israelis is that the goal of a genuinely viable separate Palestinian state is becoming a pipe dream. If Sharon prevails, the result in the West Bank can be nothing more than a bunch of Palestinian enclaves among a bunch of Israeli enclaves. It is crystal clear that there will be no peace until Israel draws back inside its original 1967 borders. It is also crystal clear that Bush should be taking the lead in pushing the Israelis toward that reality. Instead, word is going around that the American presidential election is more important than facing the truth and that nothing more can be done until that event is over in November. From the British point of view, this is almost impossible to understand. More terrorism between Palestine and Israel means more fuel in the coming months for Islamic fanatics generally and more deterioration and atrocities in Iraq and elsewhere. This will do far more damage to Bush than taking a firm line with Sharon. It is often said that American politicians must support Israel or incur the wrath of the Jewish lobby. But intelligent, and often liberal, members of this lobby know perfectly well that the Sharon hard line in the end threatens Israel itself. They should share that insight with the White House and its occupant, and with the people who surround him. Otherwise, the U.S. leadership is going to lose not just the bulk of opinion in Continental Europe -- most of that is lost already, or was never even winnable, given the deep anti-Americanism that pervades Western European public opinion. It is going to lose the core of pro-American, center-right and center-left British opinion, which up until recently was prepared to back Bush and Blair unquestioningly. David Howell is a former British Cabinet minister and former chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. He is now a member of the House of Lords.
