Europe's past colors its view

You can find clues to the European public's profound hostility to an American war against Iraq in every town and village square in France,

War memorials, carved with the names of hundreds of thousands of dead, are a personal reminder of centuries of battles on this continent. Inside each town hall, beside the French tricolore, hangs the 12-starred flag of the European Union, a reminder of how today's peace was built.

Beyond accusations of European cowardice or complacency in the current debate over what to do about Iraq, lies Europe's awareness of a terrible past, and a tolerable present. For 50 years, Europeans have put their faith in the defenses of international law, laid down by their own EU, or the United Nations.

"The US does not believe that international law is set in stone, to be respected under all circumstances, if it thinks higher values are at stake," says Jiri Pehe, an adviser to former Czech President Vaclav Havel. "We have a basic rift between two value systems."

A worldwide Gallup International poll released this week found that more than 90 percent of people in the 22 European countries surveyed are opposed to a unilateral US invasion of Iraq. Nowhere would more than 51 percent support a war even if it had UN blessing.

Behind the deep European reservations about war, say pollsters, lies a general sense in Europe that Saddam Hussein does not pose the sort of threat that the US administration sees.

And there is little sign yet that Colin Powell's speech to the UN Security Council Wednesday, in which he accused the Iraqi regime of supporting Al Qaeda, has changed any minds.

In Denmark, where 45 percent of respondents in the worldwide Gallup International poll are against military action against Iraq under any circumstances, "people fail to see the point of a war, the picture is too muddy," says Mogens Jakobsen, who conducted the poll.

"Most people do not see Saddam Hussein as a threat."

In France, adds SOFRES pollster Gilles Corman, "war is essentially seen as an American operation whose motives have not been clearly spelled out. There is skepticism about US geostrategic, oil and personal interests. People are asking why Iraq is suddenly such a danger now after 12 years. Where is the urgency that demands a war that could kill thousands of people?"

In Germany too, "people wonder if it is worth a conflict," says Richard Hilmer, head of the FORSA polling agency. "People are afraid of the possible conflicts that could result from it."

The Germans, of course, have learned lessons from their history that make them doubly wary. And after sending troops to Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, the German public is dubious, says Bernard May, deputy director of the German Foreign Policy Society, a Berlin think tank. "Nobody asked us to participate in military operations till 1990," he says. "We have had only 12 years to learn how to deal with aggression."

The French, too, have their own reasons for clinging so tightly to the UN and leading the diplomatic battle to insist that only a second UN resolution could justify a war. Paris is a second-rate power with dwindling world influence. At the UN, armed with veto power on the Security Council, it enjoys parity with the US.

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