If France, Germany & the rest of NATO come help USA & I believe they will

[billbuckhead]

because this disaster is so close to Europe and the financial cost can be paid for from Iraq's cheap oil. For powerful geopolitcal reasons, Europe and the EU have to make a peace with Muslims because of their own domestic burgeoning Muslim populations and their proximity to the Islamic world including Turkey and the Balkans.

Now this is my Question;
One might argue that the EU was on their way to detente with Islam. Has Al Queda teamed up with American neo-cons to stop them?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. The fundamentalists

share fear and hatred. Sometimes I think that they both want a holy war. I just hope the sane people in this country stop the right wingers in the US so that they stop inflaming and helping al Qaeda.

[AntiFascist]

2. Very interesting points....

I seem to remember that Saddam was threatening to change the currency basis for selling Iraq's oil to the Euro, which could have been disasterous for the U.S. dollar, and which could explain why he became such a desired target all of a sudden. We need a president who can negotiate, not with the terrorists, but with Europe.

[billbuckhead]

5. If these dumbfreeping Americans would look at a map

they could see it's a European problem. The way George Bush handled this Iraq deal was to cut the EU, the Turks and the Russians out. The only beneficiaries of the way the Bush misadministration has handled "the war on terror" has been the Texas energy industry, the House of Saud and the crooked banks that work with them.

[BonjourUSA]

3. Don't dream. We couldn't be under US command in Iraq

The Help must come from UN with a massive US witdrawal. That means the loss of the American influence in this region and the loss of control on oilfields. That will be very difficult for Kerry to accept.

[punpirate]

4. That's an odd view.

I understand the reasoning, in some very realpolitik sense, but I don't agree with it. Europe didn't create the conditions for terrorism directed at the U.S.--the U.S. did.

It's also for that reason that I doubt that NATO will extend its influence into a war of Bush's making in order to bail him out. Bush and his people are not the sort of people to acknowledge a quid pro quo arrangement--at least none which the Europeans have any expectation of us honoring. If that war made sense in the first place, Europe would have lent its support. As it is now, only the British have done so (and this may well be that British investors own about 40% of American debt and have a vested interest in not seeing the dollar drop precipitously).

At present, the Europeans have little need to kowtow to the Arab peninsula. Oil is still flowing from the North Sea, and Russia is making moves to make long-term arrangements to supply oil to Europe in exchange for the investment necessary to renew and refurbish the fields containing that oil.

As for European detente with Arab/Islamic factions, I don't see any extraordinary rift to begin with, excepting France. Its history in Algeria is a longstanding sore, but France is now divorced from that nation and the region (while they may still be sticking in their fingers for trade reasons).

What problems Islam has with Europe now are centered on the UK, for its continued support of the U.S., at mostly Blair's insistence. Blair will be gone sooner than he might wish.

Cheers.