Postwar, old allies jostle for position

Secretary of State Colin Powell has made clear that France will suffer "consequences" for actions Washington thinks undermined the transatlantic alliance. US officials say the long-term implications for France are likely to include both a process of marginalization from NATO affairs, as well as US efforts to limit its role in the Mideast peace process. Already the US is signalling that it plans to take a lead role in overseeing the "roadmap" for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, even though the plan was worked up by a "quartet" of powers including the US, Russia, the European Union, and the UN.

"That may be not so much an attempt to keep France out as recognition that the US has to play the major role," says Hurst Hannum, an international relations specialist at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Somerville, Mass. "The Clinton administration's last meetings at Camp David were unilateralist, but no one complained about that."

Still, part of the US action appears aimed at making sure the antiwar powers don't gang up on the world's superpower again. Most experts agree that Washington's three main antagonists - France, Russia, and Germany - opposed the war for fundamentally different reasons, so any incentive to stick together in the postwar months will be difficult.

Nonetheless, Mr. Kupchan says the unity the three showed suggests "something fundamental is going on here. It will take a while to play out, but it shows they are willing to contemplate life without Pax Americana."

Only France among the three is seen as having waged the antiwar fight primarily to limit US action and promote its own role in the world. Germany was acting in response to domestic politics, experts say, while Russia, although interested in limiting America's dominance, was primarily concerned about its financial interests in Iraq.

That may help explain why even during the fighting President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was dispatched to Moscow. No similar American visits were made to Paris - and Bush told NBC's Tom Brokaw Friday that French President Jacques Chirac is not likely to receive an invitation to the Crawford ranch any time soon.

"It's a good move politically to try to divide those who might join up to work against you," says Mr. Hannum. "Especially in the case of Russia, the US continues to see a strong interest in developing that relationship without any interference from Europe."

But how much cooperation the US is likely to get out of Moscow on Iraq remains unclear. Russia's ambassador to the UN, Sergei Lavrov, said last week that sanctions cannot be lifted until Iraq is found to be free of nonconventional weapons. The Russians want UN inspectors to return to Iraq to make that determination, a move the US opposes but which even Britain appears to favor.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said last week that UN inspectors should be allowed back into Iraq to take a lead on tracking down weapons of mass destruction. Beyond that, Blair is much more set than Bush on seeing a central role for the UN in reconstruction. He argues that nation-building works better when more countries are involved.

In a published report Monday, he said, "It is not in our interests - America and Britain - to have a government in Iraq that doesn't clearly have international legitimacy."

• Mark Rice-Oxley contributed to this report from London.

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