Just today, my friends at Atlantic Community–a new Berlin-based online think tank–published the last installment of an interesting three-part survey gauging how 14 think tank experts from ten different European countries assess the potential consequences of a quick U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq by the Summer of 2009 (somewhere along the lines of the “Edwards Plan”). In a nutshell, the surveyed analysts expressed fears that such a precipitous move could expose the European homeland to increased terrorist risks, lead to Iraq’s collapse and fragmentation, and also result in wider regional instability (i.e., the rise of Iran), further refugee flows, higher oil prices, and increased American isolationism. Geographically, Europe is of course much closer to Iraq and Iran than the United States. Here are the key findings of Atlantic Community’s survey:
While many strategic analysts and politicians in Europe are fully aware of the dire fall-out if Washington were to adopt an “apres-nous-le-deluge” approach in Iraq, European public opinion, in contrast, is very critical of the U.S. troop presence there and leaves Europe’s political leaders virtually no margin to provide additional political, economic, or military support for Iraq’s stabilization and reconstruction above current levels. For far too long, unfortunately, European public opinion has viewed the Iraq war as a lost cause, a quagmire caused by an unwarranted unilateral U.S. military invasion, and that is now Bush’s problem to solve. Europeans should not forget, though, that they, too, have a major stake in the future of Iraq. Check out the full survey here.
