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Troop Pledge Vexes Europe

[Wall Street Journal] Marc Champion and Karby Leggett - Europe's difficulties in raising enough troops to enforce the cease-fire in Lebanon have exposed some hard truths that are testing the Continent's ability to serve as a global military power and Middle East peacemaker. Europeans don't have enough deployable combat troops; they are disliked as much as the U.S. by Mideast radicals; and their determination to stop the destruction and insert peacekeepers could come at a higher price than they are willing to pay. A failure to put enough boots on the ground risks leaving a gaping hole in the cease-fire strategy. One harsh lesson is that France - the lead proponent of projecting Europe as an alternative to U.S. global leadership - is little more popular with Hizballah, Iran, and others in the Muslim world than the U.S., despite Paris's opposition to the Iraq war.
2006-08-24 01:00:00
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