Rise of an 'Iraq generation' in Europe?

"The photographs show how far we have to go in winning the battle of ideas" as part of the fight against terrorism, says Professor Wilkinson. "I am worried about the low priority given to human rights and the rule of law in the strategy against Al Qaeda. If we don't win the hearts and minds of young Muslims we are creating a production line of new suicide bombers."

In Europe, meanwhile, the pictures reinforce negative stereotypes of America that are common among young people, says Dr. May. "Kids are telling their teachers they always said America followed double standards, and here is the proof," he explains. "They see this as evidence of what they believed all along - that America is using force in the wrong way, that it doesn't respect its own value system, that it is simply pursuing its own interests."

US officials' insistence that only a few were responsible for the prisoner abuse is not generally believed. European newspapers have given wide publicity to the report of the Committee of the International Red Cross that such mistreatment was systematic in parts of Abu Ghraib.

In Poland, whose government and people are perhaps the most wholeheartedly pro-American on the Continent, "many people believed America represented the morally correct cause in the conflict," says Janusz Reiter, head of the Center for International Relations in Warsaw. "Now they have very severe doubts.

"This case has damaged America's moral credibility, and undermined Poles' trust in the US as the political leader of the world," Mr. Reiter worries. "But it is not irreparable."

Signs that Washington may be seeking to make amends with its European allies have begun to sprout: the coalition has already given the UN the lead role in establishing Iraq's transitional government, due to take power June 30, for example.

Washington is also believed to have signed on to a French plan for a conference involving Iraq's neighbors, to draw them into reconstruction efforts, even though two of those neighbors are Iran, an "axis of evil" member, and Syria, against which Mr. Bush imposed a trade embargo Wednesday for allegedly supporting terrorism.

At the same time, the US State Department's policy planning chief, Mitchell Reiss, has been making soothing noises at public appearances in Europe. In a speech last week in Berlin, for instance, he talked at length about the need for transatlantic cooperation and dialogue.

"The speech had everything we wanted to hear, things we had not heard for two years," says May, who heard Reiss speak.

In the wake of Spain's troop withdrawal, however, Washington is facing an uphill struggle to convince other allies to keep their soldiers in Iraq, and its hopes of persuading new contributors to join the effort appear to have dropped to zero.

US officials had hoped to persuade NATO to take a formal role in Iraq after the transition to Iraqi rule, but no such decision is expected now at the alliance summit next month in Istanbul.

With European mistrust of the US administration running so high, "the last thing the Europeans want to do is come to the June summit and allow George W. Bush to preside over the alliance as a great leader," said Philip Gordon, a Brookings Institute scholar and coauthor of a new book on the transatlantic rift over Iraq, in a recent speech to the Transatlantic Center, a Brussels think tank.

The Abu Ghraib scandal "is a major blow to European support for action in Iraq to help the Americans," says May. "It is a disaster for Iraq, a disaster for America, and a disaster for transatlantic relations. It makes life a lot harder for America's friends in Europe."

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