THE EU, the US, IRAN, and the ARMS EMBARGO on CHINA

How firm is the alliance between the EU and the USA re the rest of the "Axis of Evil" and China?



Behind the smiles
The EU, the US, Iran and the arms embargo on China

Condoleezza Rice, the new US Secretary of State, is a skilled diplomat and used that quality to good effect in London yesterday. She will, if possible, be as determined to be as pleasant at every stage of her whirlwind trip of continental Europe and the Middle East. Nor will this be a brief charge followed by a prolonged respite back in Washington. She has pledged that either herself or Robert Zoellick, an astute choice as Deputy Secretary of State, will visit every EU and Nato capital in the next few months. There were complaints that General Colin Powell disliked travelling during the first Bush Administration. The Rice-Zoellick team will have no difficulty accumulating air miles.
The issue that concerned many EU leaders before Dr Rice's arrival is how Washington intends to proceed towards Iran. To those given to selective interpretation, a US army march on Tehran is now inevitable. This implausible sentiment has been stoked by selective quotations from George W. Bush's State of the Union address on Wednesday night. He did indeed proclaim: "Today Iran remains the world's primary state sponsor of terror ?- pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve." He also asserted: "And to the Iranian people, I say tonight: as you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you." But between these two, widely reported, sentences he said firmly: "We are working with European allies to make clear to the Iranian regime that it must give up its uranium enrichment programme and any plutonium reprocessing, and end its support for terror." This is hardly unilateralism.

It is that approach which Dr Rice reaffirmed yesterday. She argued flatly that military intervention in Iran was "simply not on the agenda". She made it clear that the Bush Administration is willing to back the present efforts by Britain, France and Germany to persuade Iran to pull back from its nuclear ambitions and hoped that these will succeed. The White House and the State Department will, quite properly, want to be assured that the EU three has acquired cast-iron commitments from an unpredictable Iranian government. It is, though, nonsense to suggest that the US is about to launch a war and unfair to pretend that it is not in dialogue with EU political leaders. Whether listening works both ways is another matter. The EU is currently moving towards lifting the arms embargo imposed on China immediately after the Tiananmen Square massacre. It believes this move would help further to bring China into the global community, and recognise it does not harbour hostile intentions towards its neighbours; rather less piously, a number of large EU nations, notably France, have identified a lucrative export market for their weapons.

It is entirely possible that removing the arms embargo would have limited consequences. The issue is, nevertheless, viewed differently in Washington, not only by the Administration but Congress and not just by conservative Republicans but also liberal Democrats. The probably slim chance that US troops defending Taiwan might be attacked by an army which had acquired its arms from the EU fills policymakers in America with horror. It would be sensible for Europe, led by Britain, to recognise this fear and avoid a course which the US considers a threat to its security. If not, then Dr Rice's tours of Europe will be become rarer and less friendly.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,542-1471005,00.html