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Introduction THE ALLEGED FACTS of "power and weakness" that characterized the transatlantic debate over the use of force in Iraq were theoretically flawed and historically misleading. Theoretically, the "facts" of American power appeared to reduce the concept of power to its military dimension at the expense of, or over, anything that might expose U.S. weakness. Historically, the "facts" of European weakness neglected the postwar transformation of Europe into a union that gives its members the nonmilitary power they lack individually. All together, the argument conveyed a sense oflasting American omnipotence for what was no more than passing preponderance, while providing a caricature of Europe as an avid consumer of American capabilities and a demanding producer of additional securiry responsibilities for the United States. A conversation that starts with a cursory "Me Tarzan, you Jane" is not conducive to a dialogue. Absent a dialogue, there is little room for consultation , and without consultation there is no alliance of sovereign countries but, at best, coalitions: one coalition per mission, one mission per coalition, organized by the preponderant power-the "sheriff" in the posse-with states that are willing to join for reasons of their own, even if they are not sufficiently capable for, or directly relevant to, the mission.1 This book is not about America's power and the weakness of its main European allies-Britain, France, and Germany-but about the power and the weaknesses of both, the United States in its prevailing condition of preponderance , and the states of Europe in their new but unfinished incarnation as a European Union (EU). The facts of American power are not in doubt. At home, knowledge of these facts sharpened citizen anger at the horrific events of September n, 2001, which could not be allowed to stand unanswered, and led most Americans to rebel against like-minded allies who grew unwilling to stand with 2 INTRODUCTION their senior partner after the broad consensus achieved in Afghanistan collapsed over Iraq. Without a doubt, much that has been learned over the years has weakened the U.S. case for war in Iraq, as it was initially presented by the Bush administration and embraced by much of the country. By now the nation's anger is aimed no less at the decision proper than at its execution: more specifically, an incapacity to prepare for the aftermath of the war, on the basis of what was known at the time, and an unwillingness to acknowledge mistakes and make related tactical adjustments until it proved too late. After a relatively easy, and remarkably effective, military campaign in Iraq in the spring of 2003, the U.S. failure grew out of a devastating combination of an inept postwar strategy for peacekeeping and an ill-prepared civilian management for peacemaking. Nearly four years into the war, the former was confirmed at the highest levels of the Bush administration in the days and weeks that followed Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's replacement in early November 2006, after the latter had been demonstrated repeatedly on the ground during the previous years. The decision to wage war on Saddam Hussein-after the arithmetic of risk taking had been seemingly modified by the attacks on New York City and the Pentagon-was made by George W. Bush on behalf ofAmerica and with the nonpartisan support ofAmericans. In its immediate post-September II context, the war was widely viewed as the extension of the existential war that had begun with the earlier intervention in Afghanistan. Only subsequently did the mounting evidence of failure help turn it progressively into an "imagination war"-a war of choice rather than a necessary war.2 The progression is not without significance: this was an American war that received the near unanimous support of the U.S. Senate before it became Bush's war at home and a civil war in Iraq. Conditions were different in Europe, where the case for war never proved convincing, even in the countries that joined the coalition and as other acts of terror took place-Madrid on March II, 2004, and London on July 7, 2005, among other such targets. Indeed, after a short-lived moment of collective mourning, the post-September II debate in Europe was an intra-European debate over American power before it became a Euro-Atlantic debate over Iraq; and even when it became the latter, the debate was narrowly limited to the war in Iraq rather than extended to its broader context of "the long war" of September...

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